5 ms·
Ask HN: Why don't keyboards have braille?
In reading How Technology Is Besting My Blindness, a person's account of how technology helps him mitigate and overcome the challenges of his disappearing eyesite, I began to wonder why keyboards don't commonly include brail on the keys.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-19/how-technology-is-besting-my-blindness
I'm a competent, sighted touch-typist, but even so I still have to occasionally look at the keyboard to find a little-used key, or one that's been moved or oddly sized relative to other keyboards.
The reason this works for me is that ... the name of the key is printed on the key. It's great to be sighted.
I imagine, with no experience or evidence, that there may be apps that help sight-challenged people learn what each key is. And I don't know whether braille is anywhere close to universally learned.
So the question is posed: Why don't keyboards include braille, and why is there no movement to make it so?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=braille+keyboards&ia=products
- woirgtee 10y agono idea - but I too would love to have braille on my keyboard and display
- a3n 10y agoI wonder if this would encourage sighted people to learn braille?
- OJFord 10y agoI don't think it would 'encourage' (as in motivate) me - but I expect that I would * learn braille. After a while of using one, I expect that if I touched (or is it 'read'?!) some braille, I'd just think: > Oh - feels like an 'a'. * So if you meant 'encourage' as in 'support', yes, sorry, I agree. :)
- azeirah 10y agoI've always been interested in having some kind of tangible feedback on each key. Braille might be a decent solution for at the very least a-z keys. I'm not sure what you want to do for the rest of the keys, shift for example, you want to annotate the shift key with "⠩⠊⠋⠞"? And other keys like alt, ctrl, insert etc?
- a3n 10y agoI wouldn't know what to put on the other keys. Whatever is most useful to sight-challenged people. Maybe the traditional typewriter keys don't need anything, just the keys around the edges. EDIT: OT, I was mildly surprised that Google Translate doesn't translate braille.
- rpeden 10y agoThey do exist[1], and you can get braille stickers to add to normal qwerty keyboards[2]. The reason there's not a wider movement to make braille QWERTY keyboards easily available is that most people just don't want them. [1] http://www.electronickeyboards.com/braille-keyboards.html http://www.electronickeyboards.com/braille-keyboards.html [2] https://www.amazon.com/Braille-Keyboard-Stickers-Visually-Impaired/dp/B001BPYJQO https://www.amazon.com/Braille-Keyboard-Stickers-Visually-Im...
- drakonka 10y agoThis is very interesting! I think I might get some braille stickers for my keyboard - it seems like it would not only provide me with some physical feedback I can distinguish keys by instead of glancing down once in a while, but also result in my actually learning braille.
- nitwit005 10y agoQuite a few keyboards have some sort of tactile way of telling if your hands are on the "home row". The Macbook pro I'm using has small lines under the F and J keys. That's all you need to position if you can touch type. I suppose that's not perfect if you can't find the key, but echoing what you type is enough for most cases.
- dahdum 10y agoTyping with braille on every key would be uncomfortable imho. I have used blank key caps for many years now though, and I believe it's not a large problem for majority of blind users.
- anotheryou 10y agoI can totally not type blindly when not sitting perfectly. E.g. reaching over to the side to type in something when using a beamer. How does this work for you?
- NTripleOne 10y agoI'm not him but I genuinely can't remember the last time I needed to actually look at my keyboard, regardless of where or how I'm positioned. Although I don't find my fingers on the keyboard from the homerow nubs, I use the caps lock and return keys as my finger landmarks. It's probably (read: definitely) because I'm a heavy PC gamer, but looking now I've just noticed that my 'fingers resting on keyboard' pose is... odd, to the say the least. Fingers from left to right, left hand: shift, A, W, D, space (which is sorta to be expected) Right hand: right alt, J, O, [, return
- anotheryou 10y agoI moved my awd one to the right. If I really like a game I go through the pain of adjustig all controls one key to the left :) I'm more of a casual gamer though. Only things with short rounds and online multiplayer for me.
- dahdum 10y agoLeft control and the nubs help me home, and given the different key profiles per row and general "feel" it's not a problem. What is a beamer in relation to keyboards?
- anotheryou 10y agoI just meant not sittin in front of it, but typing standing, wen turning to the side etc. This mostly happens when I use a beamer.
- anotheryou 10y agoGet a cheap keyboard and experiment with superglue (make dots with with a toothpick or something) (might be best to ask somone sighted to do it maybe). I have some shuffled keys and indicated the keys for my index fingers with it.