Braille Predictive Text

Client: Gregory Hargraves, Paige Braille <greg@paigebraille.com>

David MacKay’s Dasher was a radical predictive text system where a machine learning language model helped users with disabilities by guiding them to zoom in to more likely possible texts. That’s no use for people with a vision impairment, who can’t see the guidance or easily operate animated graphical interfaces. This is an opportunity to work with a team who have recently augmented the classic mechanical Braille typewriter with internet connectivity. Your prediction model will help users to learn and master Braille, by offering appropriate spoken suggestions on what word they might be typing and (if needed) remind them which keys they might need to press next. All this will have to be designed in a way that is helpful, motivational and accessible, not an additional obstacle to learning Braille!