Anders Boholdt: It’s easier to keep up with everyday information
If you are visually impaired it is often hard to get access to everyday information like reading letters from the bank or getting information about the annual meeting in the housing commune. 26-year-old Anders Boholdt, who is a blind student at college, knows all about this. Through his membership of the residents’ board in his apartment building, he has tried using RoboBraille to publish newsletters as audio files. By taking this act, he has made it a lot easier for his blind and dyslectic neighbours to keep up with everyday information.
Susan Boyle in Braille
”When I receive a letter from my bank in pdf format, I use the service to transform it into a format I can read on my Braille display. Actually I use it quite often in regard to everyday information. Recently I also converted some PDF articles about Susan Boyle and Avatar to word documents in Braille, which made it possible for me to keep up in my English class.”
Newsletters in audio
”I’m sending out newsletters for the housing association. One day I got the idea to convert the newsletter in order for my dyslectic and blind neighbors to listen to it instead. I think RoboBraille is really useful when it comes to short texts like that, which everybody needs access to. Though, for people not used to listening to synthetic speech, very long texts can be tiring to listen to.”
Simplicity is the biggest advantage
”The service is foremost easy to use. The only thing you need to do, is to send an empty email with your document attached and then you receive your document as an MP3-file, a Daisy book or as a Braille-format a few minutes later.”
Avoiding the feeling of being difficult
”It would be great if more teachers knew about RoboBraille. Then the students could just ask the teachers to send the text material to a specific email address in order to convert them. The advantages are twofold: it’s effortless for the teacher to use and as a student you avoid the feeling of being difficult.”