Rotating-Wheel Braille Display for Continuous Refreshable Braille

Published

May 1, 2000

Author(s)

John W. Roberts, Oliver T. Slattery, D W. Kardos

Abstract

The increasingly pervasive influence of information technology on daily life makes accessibility a higher priority than ever before. Millions of blind and visually impaired people in the US (and far higher numbers worldwide) need some form of non-visual access to information. Non-visual displays differ from visual displays, but some features and issues are strikingly similar to those of visual displays. Significant progress has been made with text-to-speech systems, but many users prefer the precision and the reading experience of touch-based Braille systems.The widespread use of Braille displays has been limited primarily by cost and reliability issues. The cost to the user of a conventional 80-character Braille display is often $10000-15000 US, and maintenance costs can be around $500 per year. The primary cost and reliability factor is the large number of electromechanical actuators. Each 6- or 8-dot Braille cell requires six or eight actuators, with hundreds needed for the entire display. Smaller displays (e.g. 8-character) are available, but require the user to move a finger back and forth, raising issues of convenience and repetitive stress injuries.Our objective in undertaking this project was to find a new approach to Braille display design that would significantly lower cost and improve reliability, and still provide a worthwhile reading experience approaching that of full-line (80-character) displays. Our target was a factor of ten reduction in display cost.

Citation

Journal of the Society for Information Display

Volume

31

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

accessibility, Braille, tactile display

Citation

Roberts, J. , Slattery, O. and Kardos, D. (2000), Rotating-Wheel Braille Display for Continuous Refreshable Braille, Journal of the Society for Information Display, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=151464 (Accessed October 11, 2025)