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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

r/blind

Full History - 2020 - 01 - 10 - ID#emmk5h

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Hi r/blind, appreciate your inputs/feedback for an idea of a braille-based keyboard for mobile phones (self.Blind)

submitted by timeforthyme88

Hi there! I am currently part of a team participating in a Hackathon, and we wanted to validate if there will be a valid use case for a Braille-based input keyboard on current mobile phones. A rough proposal is to have 6 button-like input areas on the mobile screen, with 3 buttons on each side of the screen. Additional buttons areas for entering space or deleting characters are to be considered as well.

This is currently our main idea that we are focusing on right now, but we wanted to get actual validation in terms of actual adoption and feasibility. Below are some questions I hope to get any feedback/inputs on:

* How often do you use your mobile phone to send text messages?
* Is the use of dictation (or speech to text) apps reliable for that purpose?
* Would you prefer Dictation over a Braille-based keyboard?

I understand that there may be different degrees of vision impairment, so it will be also helpful if you could let us know the context of your impairment so we can better understand how you navigate in this world of digital technology.

Thanks in advance for any response and have a great day!

razzretina 4 points 3y ago

I'm typing this using the iOS iPhone braille input keyboard right now. It works better on a mobile device with a couple options to use it; I prefer having the phone turned away from me and using a couple different swipe gestures for space and delete. Being able to choose among the three most common braille systems in English (six dot/uncontracted, contracted English Braille American Edition, and Unified English Braille) is pretty important too since we are currently in a bit of a transitional period with which format of braille is being used by most people who can read/write it.

timeforthyme88 [OP] 2 points 3y ago

Thanks for your input and for sharing your experience! Just wondering, in your daily lifestyle, do you switch between voice dictation (speech to text) and typing on your mobile phone?

razzretina 1 points 3y ago

I don’t use dictation at all. I find it’s wildly inaccurate, slow, invasive since anyone nearby can hear you, and unusable in noisier environments. A few of my friends use dictation and I can always tell who because of the garbled mess that gets texted to me.

dmazzoni 4 points 3y ago

I'm sorry to rain on your parade, because it is a cool idea - but unfortunately I think it's already been done on both iOS and Android:

$1

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timeforthyme88 [OP] 2 points 3y ago

Thank you so much for your response and for pointing out that there are current solutions! :) we'll work on other ideas since this problem seems to be solved!

DrLuobo 3 points 3y ago

It's for a hackathon - go for it! There are similar apps already as mentioned by other responses but no reason you can't look into them and see if you can improve one specific feature or something. Hopefully you have someone on your team that knows braille or can spend a bit of time learning to test. Interestingly, the precursor to braille was developed for reading military messages in the dark - so as sighted folks think about situations where you yourselves might want to type a message without looking.

timeforthyme88 [OP] 2 points 3y ago

Thanks for your response and encouragement! Also loved your knowledge tidbit on the precursor to braille :) We will look into current solutions and see if there is particular feature to improve on!

NovemberGoat 1 points 3y ago

Sorry I'm late to the party, but I think there could be an overlooked benefit to having a braille key overlay on a phone screen. While I absolutely love BSI and use it for everything, the one thing I can't guarantee is the accuracy of what I write out in a noisy environment. Being able to feel actual button presses would allow me to definitively know what I'm inputting.