You must be wondering that what is in a braille card, how can it be a start to inclusion! Let me explain!

When I meet people who read braille, it is always amazing to see their reaction on receiving a braille card, since finally they don’t need to ask anyone for assistance to read the information.

When I meet people in general, often it’s seeing them touch the braille and a sense of intrigue as in what is this about? It’s a great place to start talking about inclusion & accessibility. For so many, it’s the start of looking at things differently.

At BarrierBreak, we have been fortunate that my brother-in-law designed and manufactured a machine for us to make braille visiting cards. It’s actually a braille press machine and has made it easy for us to do this at scale! Over the years, we have assisted corporates, NGOs and government officials by brailling their cards for them!

If you would like your visiting cards to represent your values, your ideologies, your belief in inclusion, call us at +91-7738204474 or write to us at sales@barrierbreak.com. It doesn’t matter where you are in India, we can courier it to you!

The post Braille Visiting Card – Simple start to inclusion! appeared first on Leader in Offshore Accessibility Testing | Section 508 Compliance | WCAG Conformance | BarrierBreak.

In simple terms, it means providing information access in the format that is readable, usable and as per the needs of the person.

Some commonly used terms on accessible format are:

• Large Print – Text which is a minimum of 16 point size or larger based on the needs of the person.
• Braille – There are two types of Braille – Grade 1 and Grade 2. In Grade 1, each braille cell represents only one letter, number or punctuation sign. In Grade 2, a cell can represent a shortened form of a word. Many cell combinations have been created as contractions to represent common words.
• Audio – Using Audio formats like .wav or .mp3 formats often in human voice or synthesized text-to-speech voices. In addition, softwares like screen readers and reading writing tools, convert text to speech for the users.
• Easy Read – Simple and plain English is used. In addition, short sentences are used. Often, pictures are used to illustrate sentences.

It is important to also remember how the information is being delivered and the technology being used. So is the delivery format, print or electronic or both. Is the technology you are using to deliver, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc. Let’s discuss some scenarios to understand this better.

Scenario 1

For are an insurance company providing a brochure as a printed document & as PDF document on your website, the accessible formats that you could provide would be large print and braille for someone looking for the printed content. If someone wants the electronic version, then the PDF document needs to be accessible so it can be read with a screen reader or other assistive technology.

Scenario 2

If you are a book publisher, then the accessible format you would provide is the large print and braille. If you are also providing an e-book, then you would provide an accessible Epub 3 e-book.

Scenario 3

If you are a teacher providing lecture notes to your students as PowerPoint slides, you would ensure that the PowerPoint file is accessible.

Some references:

• Accessible E-books using EPUB3
• Make your word documents accessible
• Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible
• Make your PDFs accessible
• Creating braille resources
• Make your Word, Powerpoint and PDFs accessible 
• A tool for creating accessible formats

The post Is Braille the only accessible format? appeared first on Leader in Offshore Accessibility Testing | Section 508 Compliance | WCAG Conformance | BarrierBreak.

So 14 ideas to get you thinking of what all can you label at the workplace to build inclusion:

1. In the lifts – If you can’t change lift, atleast you can make it easier to use.
2. Coffee or Tea machine – Who doesn’t want there hit of caffeine in the day.
3. Jars of sugar or milk – Some of us yet use jars in the pantry, lets label them.
4. Files or Folders – Now be able to identify one file from another.
5. Pen drives – Wondering what data you have on a pen drive, label it for easy use.
6. Cables – Too many cables to use at work, identify what is for what.
7. Water Dispensers – Hot or Cold water, what do you want.
8. Switches – Are you switching on the light or pressing the exit button.
9. Microwave – We all need to warm our food and not burn it.
10. Xerox Machine – Need copies, press the right buttons.
11. Video Conferencing Phone – Now join a call on your own without waiting for a colleague.
12. Pens with the colour specified – Are you signing with red or blue pen. Yes lots of visually imapired do sign.
13. Company ID Card – Distinguish it from your other cards, you don’t want to be using your debit card to enter the building.
14. Keys – Have lockers or drawers at work, know one key from the other.

Want to try these small ideas, know more about Braille Labeler that can easily help you do this!

We do an event called Techshare India and the venue doesn’t have braille labels in the lifts. No problem, we add them before the event. Life isn’t about the workplace, only but where you do events, and the small things that help us to build inclusion! So give it a try!

The post Braille Labels as Adaption – 14 ways in the Workplace appeared first on Leader in Offshore Accessibility Testing | Section 508 Compliance | WCAG Conformance | BarrierBreak.