Reading Braille and tactile ink-print on a planar tactile display

Abstract

Reading characters by fingers depends on the tactile features of the medium in use. Braille displays were often found to be slower than Braille on paper. We study reading Braille on a novel planar tactile display by conducting three reading tests. A first study compares the reading speed on four different devices, namely paper, 40 cell Braille display and two varied conditions on the planar pin device. In a second study we isolate the factor of 'equidistance' which is due to the design of our planar tactile display. Our intention is to find out if equidistant Braille can be as fast as standard Braille. Because of the two-dimensionality, the pin device also can show graphics and tactile ink-print. The latter was evaluated with blind subjects in the third study. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.