Refreshable Braille Displays

Refreshable Braille displays are used for accessing the information displayed on the computer screen in Braille format. A refreshable Braille display can be connected with the computer just like any other hardware device. A refreshable Braille display works in combination with a screen reader.

A refreshable Braille display uses Braille cells for displaying information. A Braille cell consists of series of dots. Different combinations of dots are used for displaying information in Braille format. A refreshable Braille display electronically raises or lowers small metal or plastic pins to form Braille characters. Users can read the Braille characters thus displayed with their fingers.

A refreshable Braille display can display one line at any given time. The information displayed on the Braille display depends on the current cursor location. As soon as the user completes reading one line, they can navigate to the next one. The number of characters that can be displayed at any given time differs from one display to another. Generally Braille displays are capable of displaying 40, 70 and 80 characters.

Braille displays are very expensive and price of the displayer depends on the number of character it can display. Higher the number of characters displayed, higher will be the price and vice versa. Overall buying a Braille displayer is very costly, since one requires to use a screen reader as well as a Braille displayer and both of them are expensive.

A refreshable Braille display is generally placed beneath the keyboard. Thus users can access the Braille cells easily along with the keyboard. Most Braille displays consists of buttons which help the user to quickly navigate without requiring them to move their hand between the displayer and keyboard for reading and navigating.

Refreshable Braille displays are used by people with visual disabilities such as blindness. In addition, refreshable Braille displays are the only means for deaf-blind users for working on the computer. Blind and deaf-blind users can give the inputs to a computer by using a keyboard and access the output in Braille via the Braille displayer. Users can navigate within an application, dialog boxes and web pages either using command keys, cursor routing keys and screen reader keystrokes.

Features

Some of the basic features of a refreshable Braille display include:

• Consists of single or multiple rows of cursor routing buttons;
• Programmable buttons to assign hotkeys for frequently performed tasks;
• Scroll by line, sentence, paragraph and pan through the document;
• Capable of taking notes and storing files.

Different Refreshable Braille displays

Some of the refreshable Braille displays available in the market are:

• Focus Braille Display: A product by Freedom Scientific, works on Windows operating system. For more information, visit Freedom Scientific website (External Website) (http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/displays_focus40-80.asp).
  
  
• ALVA 570 Satellite Pro Braille Display: A product by Synapse Adaptive, works on Windows operating system. For more information, visit Synapse Adaptive website (External Website) (http://www.synapseadaptive.com/alva/Alva_Pro/alva_570_satellite_pro.htm).
  
  

AT for Visual Disabilities

• Screen Magnifiers
• Screen Readers
• Braille Embossers
• Refreshable Braille displays
• Optical Character Recognition