In celebration of World Braille Day this 4th January we spoke with Jonathan Attenborough (no relation to David but just as awesome!) to get his perspective on Braille, why it’s so important and how it has adapted with the use and creation of Assistive Technology.
About Jonathan
Jonathan is a tech and accessibility ambassador, as well as being an accountant by day he also works with many groups to champion accessibility in all aspects of daily life. He is currently collaborating with Perth and Kinross Council as part of a steering group to ensure any planned changes to the roads and pavements of the city are accessible for all.
Jonathan uses Braille daily as part of his daily life. It took him around 6 months to learn Braille and he has found that there are many new technological innovations where he can combine his knowledge of Braille and Tech.
So what is Braille?
Braille is a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols. Braille was invented by Louis Braille (a French inventor) as a means to create independence and equality for individuals who are blind or partially sighted.
Why is Braille so important?
Over 45 million people suffer from sight loss worldwide. Being literate in Braille allows for equal opportunities for people with blindness and more accessible communication.
We asked Jonathan why he feels Braille is so important, “Whilst it is a small percentage of visually impaired people who read and write Braille I think it’s a very important skill to still learn, particularly for those visually impaired people like myself who can’t read print at all.”
Literacy is generally one of the key factors that employers look for in potential employees. Which is another reason to learn Braille!
Unfortunately in the UK only 27% of blind and partially sighted people of working age are in employment – a fall from 33% in employment in 2006 [RNIB]. The good news is that with advances in technology there are many more ways to use Braille with technology.
Advances in Technology
Photo: Blitab Device in action
There have been some amazing advances in technology to support Braille. An amazing assistive technology invention that was featured in the New York Times is the Blitab Technology Device which uses liquid technology to generate braille. The glass at the top of the tablet device is perforated into a grid with holes that allow liquid-based technology to present content in Braille.
In Argentina, a collaboration between World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and Argentinian publishers resulted in an online digital library of over 800 educational books in Spanish for those who are not Braille literate, to allow more people to access educational materials in an accessible way [United Nations]. How amazing is that! 📚
In the UK, innovative strategies have been put in place to help make live sports matches more accessible for all. Edinburgh Rugby Forum developed a new service for visually impaired and blind rugby fans using a rugby braille board. 🏉
Jonathan’s Tech Tips
We were amazed to also hear about the tech innovations that Jonathan uses to support his daily tasks. Jonathan’s kit consists of a Bluetooth Keyboard, Screen Reader as well as his trusty iPhone and MacBook personalised with his accessibility preferences enabled.
“Braille technology has come on such a long way as well in the past few years. I’m able to use a wireless Bluetooth Braille display that connects to my MacBook and phone so that I can read messages, emails and documents. I think Braille technology will only improve in the future as well and will hopefully encourage more people to learn what I think is a very important skill to have.”
Technology has been so helpful for Jonathan but as he mentioned Braille is key to learning literacy skills. He said, “Screen readers and speech to text technology is fantastic but you can’t learn literacy skills, punctuation etc from this. It also helps massively in public places as well such as elevators that have Braille numbers for each floor, this becoming increasingly more common, and also all medication packaging has Braille too so visually impaired people can easily identify different medications.”
As part of Estendios company mission we want to make education and everyday life more accessible for everyone. We would love to hear your thoughts on Braille, Accessibility and Technology in the comment section below! #WorldBrailleDay
You can find out more about the great work Jonathan is getting up to by following him on Twitter!
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