![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Since I need to write this down somewhere, I might as well write it here. I need to do research and maybe find a scientisty-person who can help me with this idea I have. As far as I've found, the materials available for blind people's computer use is... limited. There's a thingy that'll translate text into a hand device, and they learn to touch-type, but really that sounds to me like the equivalent of using a cellphone to browse the internet. That is to say, really limited and constrained and awkward.
What I think would be cool would be a touch-screen-based system that has some kind of something in it that lifts up folder icons for finger-clickability and translates text into braille - but without disrupting the natural presentation and layout of the script on the screen. And, you know, it doesn't have to involve chemicals and super-sophisticated technology. Perhaps there's a way to do it mechanically with metal pins. Maybe if they had at least two levels for raising up, also, you could have one window over another and be able to detect that with your fingers. You would also have to press in fairly hard in order to activate whatever you want to click on, since otherwise you might accidentally click it while trying to "see" it.
I don't know why, but the lack of allowances for blind people in our modern society frustrates me. If I were to go blind I'd suddenly be severely limited in what books I could read, even if fluent in braille, not to mention that manga would be lost to me (though I'm not quite sure what anyone could do about that, since it's such a visual format). Audio books are ech - I'd prefer to read. Textbooks are an expensive bitch to get braille versions of, and some of them are only available in audio form - gah! Audio textbooks are no one's idea of fun. Not to mention the fact that American currency is totally unaccomodating... would it kill them to make the bills different sizes or add some kind of touch method of telling what kind of bill it is? (maybe with notches or punch-holes in one corner of the bill?).
What I think would be cool would be a touch-screen-based system that has some kind of something in it that lifts up folder icons for finger-clickability and translates text into braille - but without disrupting the natural presentation and layout of the script on the screen. And, you know, it doesn't have to involve chemicals and super-sophisticated technology. Perhaps there's a way to do it mechanically with metal pins. Maybe if they had at least two levels for raising up, also, you could have one window over another and be able to detect that with your fingers. You would also have to press in fairly hard in order to activate whatever you want to click on, since otherwise you might accidentally click it while trying to "see" it.
I don't know why, but the lack of allowances for blind people in our modern society frustrates me. If I were to go blind I'd suddenly be severely limited in what books I could read, even if fluent in braille, not to mention that manga would be lost to me (though I'm not quite sure what anyone could do about that, since it's such a visual format). Audio books are ech - I'd prefer to read. Textbooks are an expensive bitch to get braille versions of, and some of them are only available in audio form - gah! Audio textbooks are no one's idea of fun. Not to mention the fact that American currency is totally unaccomodating... would it kill them to make the bills different sizes or add some kind of touch method of telling what kind of bill it is? (maybe with notches or punch-holes in one corner of the bill?).
