Braille is a tactile writing and reading system for the blind and visually impaired. It was invented by Louis Braille when just 15 in 1824. Respect! I don't know about you, but when I've tried braille on signs occasionally, it's always seemed difficult to train my fingers to differentiate the shapes and the dots. Perhaps it would have helped if I'd known how it worked.

Braille is based on a pattern of 6 dots, like a 6 on dice, with different letters, numerals, or sounds being different combinations. It doesn't match the shapes of written letters though, instead breaking the alphabet up into groups of 10. The first 10 letters are combinations of the top 4 dots. The following 10 letters repeat the combinations and add dot 3 in the bottom-left. Then the remaining letters, except w start again adding with dot 6 added. W wasn't in Louis Braille's original French alphabet so appears tacked on at the end.

Since its invention, it's gone through multiple iterations and languages, and there are combinations for punctuation (some common ones formed by shifting down the original 10 combinations), numbers, accented letters, maths symbols, and more. There is also agreed-upon shorthand where a letter may mean a common word eg l for like, and there are contractions where a symbol may mean a sound or set of letters like 'ch'.

The sketch shows the Latin alphabet for modern English braille.

Braille

The curb-cut effect illustrates how when we design to benefit disadvantaged or vulnerable groups we end up helping society as a whole.

Angela Glover Blackwell explains how campaigning by students with disabilities in Berkeley in the early 1970s led to adding curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. Yet it wasn't just people in wheelchairs that it helped. Curb cuts also made life easier for people pushing children in strollers, people using trolleys for deliveries, people pulling a suitcase, those wheeling bikes or on skateboards, and it also helps save lives by guiding people to cross at safe locations.

Another example is adding closed captioning to TV that helps anyone watch in a noisy bar, a waiting room, or watching an airline safety video. Or a classic example of universal design in the OXO Good Grips range originally made to be comfortable for holding a peeler even if you have arthritis.

It's also a useful analogy for "how laws and programs designed to benefit vulnerable groups, such as the disabled or people of color, often end up benefiting all," (PolicyLink) whether that be increasing broadband access, improving public transport or taking cuts out of curbs.

Here's a short, fun video of Gary Karp explaining the curb-cut effect.

Thanks to my patron Quintin Balsdon for sharing it with me.

Sketchplanations tagged with inclusion