NEW DELHI: Collaborative research by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Indiana University of the US has helped develop cost-effective designs for tactile graphics. The research, conducted over three years, will help improve the life of visually impaired people. Tactile graphics, which are also known as raised line drawings, are a means of conveying non-textual information to people who are blind or visually impaired, and may include representations of pictures, maps, graphs and other images. A person with a visual impairment can feel these raised lines and surfaces to obtain the same information that people get through looking at pictures or other visual images.
Professor M Balakrishnan of IIT-Delhi said his team’s research was not being attempted for the first time. “Similar graphics have been discovered in the US, Britain and Japan but the key thing with our study is the inexpensive nature of the tactile graphics. Only cheap ones would be useful in developing countries like India.”
Pointing out that US-based tactile diagrams cost around $25 per page at the moment, he said, “Our research helps bring down the prices to 25 cents per page. Ultimately, our aim is to make them available for as low as 5-7 cents.”
The news has brought cheer at the Blind Relief Association. “If this is true, it is great news. Tactile graphics will help improve the quality of education of visually impaired students. Because it is so cheap, we can easily make it available for our students,” Benu Nath, secretary of the association, said.
The students of the school also seem upbeat. “I always felt bad that we could not feel diagrams and graphics. I had heard of tactile graphics but also knew they were very expensive. Now, I can also feel diagrams,” a class VII student of the blind school, who did not wish to be named, said.
According to the 2011 census, India is home to about 5 million visually impaired people, more than any other country. World Health Organization (WHO) estimates put the total number of visually impaired people at 38 million. Around 90 per cent of them are in developing countries.