I don't understand why the U.S. doesn't already have braille labels. I 
believe products sold in the U.K. have basic labels in uncontracted 
braille, so the technology is available, and American companies are 
already doing it.


I suspect that part of the reason people don't learn braille is that 
they don't feel they have any reason to. I'm an English teacher. When I 
ask my students about the last thing they read, they mention textbooks 
and news articles. They forget about text messages, product labels, 
packaging instructions, etc. People who are newly blind probably think 
the same way and figure they don't want to put any energy into learning 
braille since they don't plan to read _War and Peace_. Having braille on 
product packages, even if it's as basic as a name (e.g., Campbell's 
vegetable soup) would give them a reason to want to learn braille and 
make the lives of people on this list so much easier.


I'm not sure that electronic solutions are the way to go. We can already 
use bar codes to get lots of product info, and we have solutions like 
the PenFriend with easy-to-make QR and NFC labels, but most of us don't 
use so on a regular basis. At least I don't because my own braille 
labels are so much quicker and easier to read (though not to make).


On 8/23/2017 2:07 PM, Mike Pietruk wrote:
> Harry
>
> As the vast majority of blind people don't read Braille (70% and higher,
> it would make little practical or commercial doing this.  Probably what
> would work better, and this should be totally voluntary, would be some
> sort of digital coding that a device could read and communicate the info
> to the blind person.
> That would be a far more viable approach both in delivering the
> information as well as reaching a far larger portion of the blind
> audience.
> And, I suspect that with existing technology, this might be accomplished
> quite easily with most of the development done on the user end with a bit
> of co-operation on the manufacturing and packaging side.
> Conveying the info in bgraille really these days isn't the road to go.
>
>
> Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
> diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
> – Groucho Marx
>
>
>
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