Hi Milos,
From my understanding, many blind and visually impaired people use hardware
that automatically generates Braille text so they can read computer screens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display (others may use screen reader/text to speech technology)
I am doubtful that a server-side implementation of Braille conversion would actually serve much of a purpose for this reason.
I do think it may be a worthwhile idea to communicate to organizations of the blind and visually impaired community to see if their accessibility needs are fully met by Wikimedia sites.
Best, Mark
On Jan 23, 2017 11:33 AM, "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Braille is one of the tangible symbol system, well adapted into the alphabetic environment. It is used by visually impaired persons.
So, here are my notes:
1) It is possible to make a transliteration engine from an alphabet to Braille (not vice versa; but good enough for some purposes).
2) Visually impaired people could use different methods for writing: typewriting + acoustic feedback and they are doing that way. There is, of course, possibility to have a keyboard with Braille letters imprinted on them.
3) At this moment of time it could be imagined that touchscreen devices would be able to give tactile feedback. That's the main reason why Wikimedia projects should consider adding Braille as a writing system option for all of the languages that could be supported by Braille (and other tangible symbol systems for non-alphabetic writing systems). That's technical solution and if you are interested doing that, it could be a development project lead by WM CA, for example. (I could give you my input in relation to what's needed for the project to succeed.)
In short, it could be implemented like any of the examples of multi-script [Wikimedia] languages. The basics are not complex at all (adding a file into MediaWiki and changing a config file; per language), but the implementation into the Wikimedia environment could be tricky, although I don't think that anyone would object to get a tab on, let's say, English Wikipedia with the options of choosing a writing system -- or having any other kind of more subtle option to choose if somebody is visually impaired or just prefers Braille.
Keep in mind, however, that such thing would become realistic after the devices are able to give tactile feedback. And I think Apple Inc. or some other company would "invent" such things during the next couple of years.
However, keep in mind that the specialized keyboards for Braille are already interpreting alphabets, so I suppose that even that tactile feedback from the future touchscreens would be likely interpreted into Braille on lower level than MediaWiki interface.
However, again, we have keyboards for touchscreens and I suppose it could be implemented into MediaWiki, as well.
On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Jean-Philippe Béland jpbeland@wikimedia.ca wrote:
How to implement this writing system on the various languages then?
Jean-Philippe Béland Vice President, Wikimedia Canada User:Amqui
Le ven. 20 janv. 2017 09:02, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com a écrit :
I've rejected the request for Wikipedia Braille [1], as it's not a language, but a writing system used by various languages.
languages/Wikipedia_Braille
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 8:30 PM, Marcos Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
From my understanding, many blind and visually impaired people use hardware that automatically generates Braille text so they can read computer screens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display (others may use screen reader/text to speech technology)
I am doubtful that a server-side implementation of Braille conversion would actually serve much of a purpose for this reason.
I do think it may be a worthwhile idea to communicate to organizations of the blind and visually impaired community to see if their accessibility needs are fully met by Wikimedia sites.
There were at least two occasions when it turned out that it was useful to have in-house solution. One are web keyboards (obviously, touchscreen devices don't have all necessary languages, so web keyboards are useful in such situations) and the other is possibility for top-down writing (just Internet Explorer supports it; not sure even for the new MS web browser and nobody else bothers to create top-down rendering).
So, it could make sense to make something similar. Those keyboards are very expensive and it could eventually bring to the majority of visually impaired relatively cheep devices with the software solution. (In other words, that web keyboard should add tactile feedback, as well as font rendering on screens could imply tactile features.) However, we are not yet there.
And I definitely agree that we should communicate to organizations fo blind and visiually impaired community. I think US/Canada/Western Europe would be the best for the beginning.
Hoi, This was the conclusion of a previous investigation. Thanks, GerardM
On 23 January 2017 at 20:30, Marcos Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Milos,
From my understanding, many blind and visually impaired people use hardware that automatically generates Braille text so they can read computer screens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Refreshable_braille_display (others may use screen reader/text to speech technology)
I am doubtful that a server-side implementation of Braille conversion would actually serve much of a purpose for this reason.
I do think it may be a worthwhile idea to communicate to organizations of the blind and visually impaired community to see if their accessibility needs are fully met by Wikimedia sites.
Best, Mark
On Jan 23, 2017 11:33 AM, "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Braille is one of the tangible symbol system, well adapted into the alphabetic environment. It is used by visually impaired persons.
So, here are my notes:
- It is possible to make a transliteration engine from an alphabet to
Braille (not vice versa; but good enough for some purposes).
- Visually impaired people could use different methods for writing:
typewriting + acoustic feedback and they are doing that way. There is, of course, possibility to have a keyboard with Braille letters imprinted on them.
- At this moment of time it could be imagined that touchscreen
devices would be able to give tactile feedback. That's the main reason why Wikimedia projects should consider adding Braille as a writing system option for all of the languages that could be supported by Braille (and other tangible symbol systems for non-alphabetic writing systems). That's technical solution and if you are interested doing that, it could be a development project lead by WM CA, for example. (I could give you my input in relation to what's needed for the project to succeed.)
In short, it could be implemented like any of the examples of multi-script [Wikimedia] languages. The basics are not complex at all (adding a file into MediaWiki and changing a config file; per language), but the implementation into the Wikimedia environment could be tricky, although I don't think that anyone would object to get a tab on, let's say, English Wikipedia with the options of choosing a writing system -- or having any other kind of more subtle option to choose if somebody is visually impaired or just prefers Braille.
Keep in mind, however, that such thing would become realistic after the devices are able to give tactile feedback. And I think Apple Inc. or some other company would "invent" such things during the next couple of years.
However, keep in mind that the specialized keyboards for Braille are already interpreting alphabets, so I suppose that even that tactile feedback from the future touchscreens would be likely interpreted into Braille on lower level than MediaWiki interface.
However, again, we have keyboards for touchscreens and I suppose it could be implemented into MediaWiki, as well.
On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Jean-Philippe Béland jpbeland@wikimedia.ca wrote:
How to implement this writing system on the various languages then?
Jean-Philippe Béland Vice President, Wikimedia Canada User:Amqui
Le ven. 20 janv. 2017 09:02, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com a écrit :
I've rejected the request for Wikipedia Braille [1], as it's not a language, but a writing system used by various languages.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/
Wikipedia_Braille
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