As a life long Braille user, I applaud those restaurants enlightened enough
to recognize both their social responsibility, and the market potential of
accessible menus.  I make it a point to always ask for a Braille menu, and
give repeat business to those who can provide one.  I am well aware that
the majority of visually impaired people do not use Braille, but I confess
to irritation when that fact is used as a deterrent to providing
Braille.  At least to some extent, the argument that because few use
Braille it shouldn't be available is circular logic.  If it is never
available, then the impetus to learn Braille and any personal motivation to
do so is removed.  A self fulfilling situation.

It is also true though that providing a menu in Braille only addresses
accessibility incompletely.  Cassette menu?  You must be kidding!  If you
want to have some fun, go to a restaurant that does not have Braille menus,
and ask the server to read the menu for you.  Talk about a fiasco?

Visually impaired people as a group are a major market.  Not the biggest,
but one worth wooing.  We need to realize that.   Though we need to
continue to push for increased access to information such as menus, we
shouldn't denigrate Braille or those who use it, just because not everyone
can use it.  That is tirany of the majority, and we should know all about that.

Bill

At 11:36 PM 12/22/02 -0800, George Cassell wrote:
>Michael May got pretty excited to find out that there were restaurants that
>had their menus online.  I don't exactly consider this to be particularly
>exciting, or even "accessible" to the masses of blind people around the
>world, or even here in the United States.  Having Brailed menus is not very
>accessible, owing to the low percentage of blind and visually-impaired
>people who are Braille-literate.
>
>If finding one restaurant in a hundred that offers a Braille menu is so
>earth-shaking, then why aren't blind people capitalizing on this lucrative,
>money-making opportunity of providing Braille menus to every restaurant in
>their own area, and even providing such a site on the internet, where
>restaurants can order Braille menus?  Doesn't anyone smell the scent of
>money in such a project?
>
>If having a restaurant's menu online is so earth-shaking, then why not
>provide this service to restaurants, providing them with their own web page
>menu on your own menu-specific website.  You could literally have hundreds,
>if not thousands of web pages, each for specific restaurants, on your own
>website, charging each establishment, a mere $50 per month, to host and
>provide their own menu online.  Is the scent of money growing stronger than
>the smell of food in the restaurants themselves?
>
>But wouldn't it be a heck of a lot easier, if you merely suggested to the
>restaurateurs, that they provide an audio cassette player with the menu
>spoken on the audio cassette tape, for their blind and visually-impaired
>customers?  And couldn't this, too, be turned into a money-making venture
>for some enterprising blind or visually-impaired entrepreneurs?
>
>If I'm wrong about this, then Shakespeare was right, when he said, "Much
>Ado About Nothing!"
>
>I just hope that any menu provided, is easier to read than Michael's
>message was!
>
>
>-- George
>
>
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html