“An Intuitive and Compact HID for the Braille Education of the Visually Impaired. An educational device created in response to the decline of Braille literacy rates among the visually impaired. An intuitive HID that allows the visually impaired to easily interact with computers
The Problem
Literacy in the Braille system is crucial to the employment of the visually impaired. According to the National Federation of the Blind, 80 percent of the visually impaired who are employed can read Braille. However, in recent years, the Braille literacy rates has been on the decline. Today, less than 10 percent of the visually impaired children can read Braille, where as the number was about 50 percent in 1950.
The main reason for this trend can be traced to the advancement and availability of personal audio player and text-to-speech technology, which eliminated the need for the visually impaired to understand Braille in order to gather information.
“Audio can give you information, but it can’t give you literacy,” said Chris Danielsen, a member of the National Federation of the Blind.
According to Jim Marks, a board member of the Association on Higher Education and Disability “We stopped teaching our nation’s blind children how to read and write.”
The solution
While computer text-to-speech technology contributed to the decline of Braille literacy rates, removing computers from the lives of the visually impaired is not the solution, as it has become an essential tool in the modern world. My solution is a HID (human interface device) that will allow the user to interact with the computer while learning / using the Braille system.
Knobo will also benefit those who are already familiar with Braille. For the visually impaired, there is a steep learning curve before they can use a keyboard. With Knobo, they can start typing right away, not to mention it’s a lot more compact than a standard keyboard.”