Blitab Braille Tablet for the Blind – Is it needed?
As someone who has promoted the Universal Design concept for decades, I was taken back by a Futurism video I saw on the Blitab braille tablet. It is billed as “The World’s First Tablet for the Blind”, but that’s not true, and it’s arguably not nearly the best either. That title, in my view, goes to the Apple iPad with all of its accessibility features, but more on that later. This short article explains my concerns with the Blitab product and the company developing it, because they don’t seem to understand their market or target user. I urge any of my blind friends to challenge me on this assertion in the comments below.
VOICE DESCRIPTION – Here’s a transcript of the text that displays over all the pretty images, because a blind person can see neither. … The first ever “iPad” for the blind is here. [Note that it’s NOT an Apple iPad.] Blitab features smart liquids that create bubble-like tactile pixels on the screen. Text fines from USB and web pages are converted directly into Braille code. The tablet’s screen is able to display up to 15 lines at a time. Its special screen technology can also produce tactile maps and images. [Now that’s something iPad can’t do.] Blitab is expected to cost $2800 and is projected to ship later this year. [iPad starts at about $200.]
Nonstandard Platform
Blitab relies on braille rather than screen readers, and that makes the device expensive, because so much proprietary technology had to be developed. Creating any nonstandard platform also limits the number of 3rd party apps that can run on a device, and that also limits the user value – so you pay more but get less. I seriously question the need for a Braille tablet at all, except maybe for someone who is both blind and deaf and thus can’t hear the spoken words of a screenreader. That’s because all of my blind friends tell me that Apple iPhones and iPads are their favorite devices.
Apple’s iPhones are accessible to blind people out of the box, starting with the 3GS. They come complete with a screen reader, “VoiceOver”, and print enlarger “zoom”; and even without tactile buttons, dozens of apps make use of these accessibility features. Pat Pound, one of my blind friends, described 70 of them in Accessible iPhone Apps, a guest article published here five years ago.
The Benefit of Platform Standards
Before standards are established and mass markets develop, designers often have to build products around proprietary hardware and software platforms. That requires them to do most of the work themselves. Such was the case with medical tablets from Intel-GE Care Innovations, GrandCare Systems, and Waldo Health. While their early work gave them a first-mover advantage, their proprietary designs increased product costs, minimized third-party app development, and limited market penetration.
If they were to start over from scratch, I expect these companies would instead build apps for the Apple iPad, or Android-based tablets, and sell services to people using devices that they already have and use daily, and not selling them a proprietary new device just to use their service. Given the popularity of Apple products among blind people, I’m surprised that the Blitab went with braille instead.
Universal Design Principles
Well before retiring from IBM in 1999, I was well aware of assistance technologies; and when attending conferences on the topic, my message to developers was that they could reach more people, deliver more value, and make more money by designing products for everyone regardless of size, age or ability. That’s because we all have disabilities in our lives. Some of us wear glasses to correct our vision, for example, and others wear hearing aids. Even sighted people may be temporarily blinded by bright lights or have to fumble their way through dark rooms, so some of the simplest assistive products have been developed that are widely used, such as photosensing sensing night lights that turn on at night and off in the day.
Yvonne and I now live in a Del Webb age-limited retirement community where Universal Design and wheelchair accessibility is a big selling feature. All of the homes are one-story models with wide doorways and lever handles instead of doorknobs. Sidewalks rise gradually to the entry to avoid the need for stairs; and even though that feature is associated with the elderly using a cane or walker or the physically disabled in a wheelchair, it’s just as helpful to new moms with babies in strollers or road warriors with wheeled luggage. These Del Webb homes are a great example of smart design that works for everyone.
Accessible Web Design
A few years ago I spent several days at the SXSW conference in Austin promoting accessible web design in the Knowbility booth. In the process I gained a new perspective of how Modern Health Talk appears to a blind person using the JAWS screenreader. You can watch and here an example of this screen reader in a video included here. From visiting the blitab.com website, it seems that the company lacks any significant understanding of blind users, because their website does not seem to be very accessible. Again, please comment if you disagree with any part of this article or see benefits of Blitab that are not clear in the intro video above, on their website, or in this next video below.
The video above is from a CES 2017 presentation to TechCrunch. The first six minutes is a presentation aimed at sighted magazine editors, followed by five minutes of Q&A.
I think this product would be helpful for people who are blind and deaf. iPads would be impossible to use, as far as I know for some who has complete vision and hearing loss.
Hi:*
I am a blind teacher’s aide, andI have been reading Braille since I was a small child.
Just came across this article as I was looking up information on Blitab. All of the points I would have made have already been made,both for and against. True, iOS devices are arguably the most accessible devices you can find anywhere. However, I think Blitab will serve its targeted market very well, namely poor countries with limited access to braille reading material. I live in the Bahamas, where Braille displays have to be ordered from overseas with often uncertain government assistance. The same is true of Braille books. In fact, I searched for this device specifically to address the literacy problems that the school that I work at are currently experiencing. So I do hope the Blitab and similar inexpensive Braille devices get the attention they deserve.
Thanks, J, for your reply. You make important points, especially about buttons and images with no AltText that screen readers can interpret, because even products like Blitab would have the same problem with them.
As I reviewed the article again, I noticed a link a second video was broken, so I searched for and found a replacement. The “new” video is from a CES 2017 presentation to TechCrunch. The first six minutes is a presentation aimed at sighted magazine editors, followed by five minutes of Q&A.
This article has an interesting perspective, because accessibility and information to the blind should not solely be through listening. That is very limiting for blind users. Braille is as important to them, just as print is important to everyone else.
Have you tried listening to screen readers and voice assistant programs for a long time? Try listening to a long-winded friend speak for 3 hours or more, and your ears will get tired. It’s worse if they’re monotone and don’t pause for any air.
As great as screen readers are, they can also be limiting. The accessibililty in exising 3rd party apps are barely even there, as there’s no standard practice to make them all accessible. Most apps have no boundary boxes for buttons, or textboxes, for the voice over programs to read. It’s just blank. And even if items can be read by the screen reader, some of the items are unlabeled, in which it will read something like “unlabeled5 button” by the screen reader, even when visually the button has a name like “Enter”. Imagine 10 unlabeled buttons being read to you out loud, like “Unlabeled1 button, unlabed2 button, unlabled3 button” etc., and it will drive anyone listening to it crazy.
I don’t understand why Braille wouldn’t be necessary for blind users on tablets. In this article, all the accessibility features are for everyone, regardless of their ability, but it seems to not see the point in Braille. A Braille tablet seems to be limited, but technically it is “more” accessible to everyone, for the blind, deaf, and the sighted. And if people can’t read Braille, well, there’s a screen reader that they can use.
Hello, and thank you for an interesting article. Although I can agree on much of what you write here, I experience that you seem to forget something very crucial: The importance of being able to read.
From my perspective as a blind person, reading means reading Braille. Although synthetic speech is a built-in option when accessing information on computers and mobile devices, it does not give the same direct access to the written word like Braille does. The problem is, however, that most of the world’s blind community never get access to Braille devices. If they manage to get access to digital information at all, that access is limited to a built-in speech synthesizer which works together with an often likewise built-in screen reader application. Speech gives access, but not necessarily literacy.
Traditional Braille displays can show one line of text at a time, or a fraction of a line. The smallest mobile Braille devices show as little as 12 characters at a time. That way one experience a quite one-dimensional way of reading, approaching the way of using speech to access information, and very different from reading Braille on paper. There is where Blitab and other projects come in. They try to reduce the gap between reading Braille on paper and on digital devices by allowing the devices to show bigger portions of text at a time. This should also reduce to some extent the need for producing bulky Braille books on paper.
I hope Blitab and similar Projects succeed. We need Braille devices like that.
*HI Wayne, Great article. I think you’re on point about a lot of companies utilizing Apple’s products instead of proprietary platforms. However, in GrandCare’s case – many of the end users (the seniors) still don’t have or want tablets. They want an appliance that is always on, all the time, always listening to sensors, doesn’t run out of batteries and doesn’t get lost. Although GrandCare has tried tablets at various times, it never worked out due to the above as well as usability and dexterity issues. The tablet is STILL popular as a tool for caregivers to use in order to check in on the GrandCare. However, the GrandCare still utilizes the appliance because it has to always be on. Tablets by nature turn off. It has to always be listening and the loved one/resident doesn’t need to do ANYTHING in order for it to work, provide reminders, messages, even to receive automated video chat calls from designated loved ones (can even be set up so the loved one doesn’t even ever have to touch the screen). This is particularly helpful for memory care/assisted living applications, or if the video chat starts as a result of the pendant being pressed or even at end of life/hospice family communication situations.
Thanks again and visit http://www.grandcare.com for more info!
I understand your perspective and desire to serve the “always on, always listening” need that you describe; and I appreciate your company being an innovator. At the same time, I see that “first to market” approach as both risky and market limiting. Standard platforms are emerging for the “always listening” requirement you describe, and they’re already beginning to gain mass-market acceptance. These include Amazon Echo, Apple Siri, and similar systems from Google. Of course the pace of their market acceptance, including among seniors, will largely depend on their cost, ease of use, and delivered value.
GrandCare, because of its focused, proprietary approach, can offer a superior user experience in well-defined applications, but that also means you’re unable to support a wide array of 3rd party apps and services. Without using widely adopted standards, companies in your situation must do much of the heavy lifting themselves. And being out in front means you’ll naturally make mistakes and take arrows in the back that you could have avoided with a standard platform. But that’s your choice, and your risk. I wish you well.