Sunday, November 12, 2006
Braille-embossed card
I got my cards yesterday, with the company name and my first name in braille. Story is on the personal journal. To get your own, write to Nidhi Kaila of Esha at Esha_braille AT yahoo DOT com.
Entries tagged “braille”
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Braille-embossed visiting cards
Last evening, I visited Samarthanam Trust in JP Nagar to get my cards braille-embossed.
Mr Chandrashekar wasn’t in the place when I arrived. I was an hour late. The security guard called his phone to say he had a visitor, at which point Chandru — as the others called him — apologised for being away. He said he’d be back in ten minutes. I waited.
At this time, I had no idea what Samarthanam Trust was about. Was it a hostel for the blind? Judging from the address, I had expected to arrive at someone’s private apartment. People walked in and out. Some were clearly visually impaired. Others were not. A school, perhaps?
Chandru arrived shortly, apologised again (I protested weakly), then lead me upstairs to the office room, where he introduced me to the others. When I asked about the place, he played an introductory video on his computer. Samarthanam is a trust for the disabled that has been operational since 1997. It initially catered to the visually impaired but has since expanded to accommodate other physically and economically challenged students.
Somewhere in this process came the realisation that Chandru too was blind. And yet, he had walked in the door unassisted, introduced himself, lead me up the stairs, and operated his computer to show me a video that he himself couldn’t see. We had even corresponded over email. He explained that he was using “Jaws” screen-reading software, which provides audible feedback for all on-screen and keyboard activity.
We then turned to the subject of braille-embossed cards. He took one of my cards, felt it to determine which side was up (possible because the print creates subtle mounds on the paper), and put it in a machine called the brailler.
Braille is a six-digit binary encoding scheme, arranged in two columns of three rows each. The dots are numbered column-first, 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5, 6. Grade 1 Braille uses one six-digit code for each letter, while the more commonly used Grade 2 Braille features contractions for common words like “to” and letter combinations like “sh”. It’s easy to pick up visually. In just one sitting with the sample cards Chandru showed me, I could learn to recognise several letters. Look up the Wikipedia page on Braille for more. The brailler features nine keys, they being newline, 1, 2, 3, space, 4, 5, 6 and backspace, from left to right.
Figuring out where to position the characters on the card took a while, for Chandru required assistance aligning with the printed letters, but after just one sample card, he was able to pick a new card from the stack, figure out which side was up, align the card in the brailler, type, and move to the next, completely unassisted. In about half an hour, he had braille-embossed all my cards.
Chandru at work. Picture posted with permission.The organisation facilitating this, Esha, operates out of Bombay and Bangalore. Getting your cards braille-embossed (at a rupee each) provides financial assistance to the visually impaired, while helping sensitise others to being disabled-friendly. If you want your cards embossed too, contact Nidhi Kaila of Esha at Esha_braille AT yahoo DOT com.
Here’s my card, showing the company name and my first name in braille. The leading dot (position 6) indicates that the following letter is uppercase.
Mr Chandrashekar wasn’t in the place when I arrived. I was an hour late. The security guard called his phone to say he had a visitor, at which point Chandru — as the others called him — apologised for being away. He said he’d be back in ten minutes. I waited.
At this time, I had no idea what Samarthanam Trust was about. Was it a hostel for the blind? Judging from the address, I had expected to arrive at someone’s private apartment. People walked in and out. Some were clearly visually impaired. Others were not. A school, perhaps?
Chandru arrived shortly, apologised again (I protested weakly), then lead me upstairs to the office room, where he introduced me to the others. When I asked about the place, he played an introductory video on his computer. Samarthanam is a trust for the disabled that has been operational since 1997. It initially catered to the visually impaired but has since expanded to accommodate other physically and economically challenged students.
Somewhere in this process came the realisation that Chandru too was blind. And yet, he had walked in the door unassisted, introduced himself, lead me up the stairs, and operated his computer to show me a video that he himself couldn’t see. We had even corresponded over email. He explained that he was using “Jaws” screen-reading software, which provides audible feedback for all on-screen and keyboard activity.
We then turned to the subject of braille-embossed cards. He took one of my cards, felt it to determine which side was up (possible because the print creates subtle mounds on the paper), and put it in a machine called the brailler.
Figuring out where to position the characters on the card took a while, for Chandru required assistance aligning with the printed letters, but after just one sample card, he was able to pick a new card from the stack, figure out which side was up, align the card in the brailler, type, and move to the next, completely unassisted. In about half an hour, he had braille-embossed all my cards.
Chandru at work. Picture posted with permission.
Monday, November 6, 2006
Braille-enabled visiting cards ⠠⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑⠤⠑⠝⠁⠃⠇⠑⠙ ⠧⠊⠎⠊⠞⠊⠝⠛ ⠉⠁⠗⠙⠎
Peter Griffin wrote in about an organisation that helps visually impaired kids raise money by giving them work braille-embossing visiting cards. I visited the Wikipedia page on Braille last night and was fascinated to learn that Braille is a six digit (2x3) binary-encoding scheme that originates from military use. The system is designed around how fingers feel rather than being merely embossed versions of latin characters.
I’d like my cards braille-enabled, but have some questions. Peter, can you pass these on? Posting these in public because others may be curious too.
- Do the kids do the embossing themselves, or are they just the beneficiaries? The Outlook article doesn’t say.
- How do they mark the braille dots? By hand, one card at a time? If so, I do think these kids could benefit from a technology upgrade that lets them be more productive. Such an upgrade may not make sense when there isn’t much work, but I hope it’s in the plan.
- What kind of paper should the cards be printed on, to make braille impressions that last? Since I’ll be carrying stacks of cards around, it would be nice to not have them smother the dots off each other.
- The logistics. How do we do this? Do I get my cards done the regular way and then send them for braille-embossing? To what address do I mail them? Can I instead email a design and expect to receive printed and embossed cards in my mail a week later?
(Note: In the braille version of the title above, I’ve used regular spaces instead of the braille space, Unicode character 2800 “⠀”, because my browser treats the braille space as non-breaking and messes up the page’s formatting.)