LONDON: A British company plans to launch a Braille e-reader for blind people this year that should greatly enhance their reading experience and spare them from lugging around hefty print volumes. 

Since it was developed by Louis Braille in the 19th Century, the alphabet of raised dots has brought the joy of reading to millions of blind and partially-sighted people. 

But in its printed form it's not exactly convenient or portable: A Braille copy of the Bible can take up about 5  feet (1.5 metres) of shelf space. 

A common myth about web accessibility is that it “Only helps visually impaired”. It’s one we hear again and again. We only want to test with screen readers.

This approach of building accessibility and inclusion for only one group at a times, is not really practical.

Let me share how I see it with a very real world example. Let’s take the example of an elevator which will be used by lots of different people with diverse needs. Imagine if we went with only one disability at a time, when we thought of accessibility. Let’s look at the needs one at a time:

Over the years, the integration of visually-impaired individuals has increased in government services. However, they still have to encounter many difficulties, ranging from the lack of accessible infrastructure to the unavailability of materials in a suitable format. For instance, a visually-challenged aspirant preparing for UPSC can only avail 20% of the entire syllabus in Braille. Akella Raghavendra from Hyderabad observed their plight from close quarters when he started coaching visually-challenged UPSC aspirants in 2016.

RDL Visible Light Communication and Research Centre at Sahyadri Innovation Hub at Sahyadri Institute of Engineering and Management has developed VL glass for visually challenged. RDL Technologies Pvt Ltd CEO Raghavendra G Shetty said that it is a seamless indoor navigator and a visually challenged person can navigate around obstacles avoiding mishaps and dangerous objects.

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday commended the Election Commission for its initiative in providing Braille EPIC cards to the visually impaired in Karnataka and said such a measure would enable voting accessibility to all.