Category: Geeks r Us
Hi all.
I recently got a braille display, and have kinda a dumb question.
I was never a braille speed reader, but I could read fast enough to get by.
I really thought I'd be able to speed through books using my display, but have found the exact opposite to be true.
I have a focus 14 blue, so obviously it's a bit small, but I find it's a lot slower than I expected.
Does this go away, in your experience, with practice? Or, is braille display just a slow medium for reading stuff?
Even with autoscroll, I find it doesn't feel consistent. It's either too fast or too slow.
It shows a line with only like 5 haracters on it, waits a tick, then moves. Then, it's a full line, and I barely get it read before it's on to the next thing.
It tries to not hyphenate words, I think, which makes it feel very uneven while I'm reading. I know I'm not the greatest braille reader, especially since I'm rusty, as I don't use it as much as i did in school anymore, but would love to get faster.
I want to be able to read books in braille for several reasons, but feel like the display is making it a real pain in the ass.
Any thoughts?
Hi,
Obviously you'll be slightly slower reading on a smaller display than on a larger one simply because you won't get as much on a line, and if the next upcoming word is quite long, then you may get very few characters in some instances.
However, I don't find smaller displays prohibitively slow to read longer documents and books. I'm a fairly quick Braille reader and I only have a 12 cell display. HOwever, personally I read more quickly with autoscroll turned off, I just pan the display along when I'm done. How convenient this will be will depend on where the buttons are on your display. I don't have and haven't seen the Focus 14 Blue, so don't know how viable this would be for you.
The focus has a pretty good setup. pushing the scroll buttons isn't a problem, just the short lines are irritating.
Also, I think playing guitar's numbed my left hand, which is my dominant braille hand.
I also have a Focus 14 and sometimes the problem is not on the size of the Braille display but on the settings of the screenreader.
For example if you get 5 characters in one line and the next word starts on the next line it means the screenreader is trying to separate words. For bigger braille displays it's ok but not for the Focus 14.
You have to change in the settings of your screenreader for the option to maximize the number of characters per line.
Like that you will have a smoother experience while reading!
Hope it helps
Thanks,
I think that's good advice. I'll check and see what my screen reader has to offer in this regard.
I have gotten it figured out with jaws, but am not sure about the iphone.
I don't think voiceover has any specialized settings for braille displays; I think there are two or three options but nothing on the scale of what JAWS has to offer. I don't remember seeing any options concerning number of characters per line in any case; you may be out of luck there.
Another point about speed reading and Braille:
If you're comparing a display to a page, it's slower. Not just to sit and read, maybe, but all the good stuff we get on a page, where paragraphs start and end, sections, you know how on a page you have your hands on different places of the page depending on what you're looking at, like looking through a magazine. Pretty unorthodox and makes the educator types all petulant and upset, but no matter, they still get your tax dollars so they can siddown while you carry on. lol.
But seriously, you can't do any of that on a display, you are constricted to one line at a time. I'm with Ed at least for Freedom Scientific displays, that auto scroll thing isn't as useful as their convenient panning keys right under your thumbs.
Wish I had some kind of easier scrolling mechanism for the RefreshaBraille on the iPhone though because it's panning keys are tiny little things sort of under the pinky. I often cheat and use space bar with dots 2 and 5 to pan because I can sort of use my thumbs for that.
So yes to what Meglet said about screenreader settings, use those as much as you can. But so long as we have a display with just one line, we're restricted in terms of scanning pages of material like you do with a piece of Braille material.
I think you don't have settings for that on IOS unfortunately! I find this problem on the Kindle App with the Focus 14.
With Jaws and Nvda you have it for sure!
This is why I always try to get the bigger displays. If I'm using a 32 or 40 cell display, even the 80 cell one I had a few years ago, I can read just as fast on a display as I can on paper Braille. And that's pretty fast, given that I've been reading Braille since I was about five or six. But if I'm using one of the 14 or 18 cell displays, I'm slow as hell on them. They drive me nuts because you hardly get anything on a line, so they don't really seem worth it. I love Braille when I can get it, but I'd rather use speech than the little displays. I'm glad they're available for people who need or prefer them, though.
I thought I was really going to love my pocket sized 14 cell display... No moving to a new line, just braille scrolling under my hands.
I haven't found it to be that easy. Maybe you're right, and a display with 32 or 40 cells would be better.
It's good for jotting down notes, but any kind of long reading is obnoxious.
I echo Alicia's thought in this. I've been reading braille since 4 or 5. I don't think i can comfortablely reads 18cells display or lower. 32cells for me is consider the border line. However, i'm not sure i'll go for 80cells either. I understand the compact display like 12, 14, 18 or 20cells. With those displays, i think i'll spending most time scrolling rather than reading itself. :)
They are difrent concepts.
Focus 14 or similar displays are for reading Sms, emails, quick navigation etc etc.
They are not the best for reading books and large documents.
You can do that if you like to scroll fast or use methodes for reading with braille and speech simultaneously.
For example one thing that surprised me was the keyboards for Focus displays in Jaws. It's amazing what you can do with the display on the computer without touching the computer keyboard.
I seriously recomend you to read the Focus 14 manual for usage with Jaws. Also In Freedom Scientific website you have a guide for Focus 14 and IOS.
Pay attention, it's not the general braille guide for Ios because with Focus you have much more options than that.
And actually I also learnt with practice that you really can make a nice text editing with a small braille display as the Focus 14 or others in the same style. Because it flashes the word you are on, those displays with some practice can be really accurate and handy for editing text specially if you also use speech.
Now about the diffrences of reading in braille and paper:
I also have an Active Braille with 40 cells from HandyTech which has something called ATC which basically allows you with a infra-red technology, to scroll for the next line without pressing a button.
It basically detects your reading position and it moves the display for you. And this is much better than Autoscrolling because you only move the line in your reading rythm.
With the Active Braille I don't like the Autoscrolling because by setting let's say 5 seconds, in my mind it always moves before or after I want and never in my timing.
With ATC it is a real pleasure.
I have to say that after some practice and with the easy navigation of this braille display allowing you to move by character, word, paragraph etc etc, for the first time in my life I felt it's more pleasurable to read in a braille display than in the actual braille hard copy book!
Also if you add quick word searches, bookmarks etc etc on this display for me, it's really much better reading in the Active Braille than paper.
It's just my opinion though!
I like my Focus 40 and use it to read Kindle books.
Faial,
Thanks for the hookup on the freedom science fiction manual on I devices. That was a good source for info.
I am happy it was helpful! Very often people find out that this devices can do much more than they previously thought when buying it!
I have a focus 40 blue and love it. I ready everything with no probs.