“In an ideal world, whatever is available in print should be available in braille,” says Betty Nobel, a long-time advocate for blind accessibility and retired braille educator. The United Nations commemorates World Braille Day annually on Jan. 4, and this year marked the 201st anniversary of the invention of braille. While Nobel acknowledges the steps being made to help the visually impaired in Canada, there are still many gaps.
“If we had more signage in braille, that would be wonderful,” says Nobel, the current chair of federal organization Accessibility Standards Canada’s (ASC) Wayfinding and Signage committee. “Braille in elevators is really important, [but] there are still lots of elevators that don’t have braille.”
Braille signage, TransLink. | Photo courtesy of Translink
The path to teaching
Nobel first started teaching at the Vancouver Community College (VCC) where she taught French for continuing education and pioneered the Visually Impaired Adult Program. She noticed that the school had a program for the deaf and hard of hearing, but not for the blind and visually impaired. Launched in 1981, her program included learning braille and technology skills as well as helping adults who lost their vision regain independence.
“I thought, there really isn’t a lot going on for adults who lose vision,” she says. “[So], I thought it would be a great idea to start a program for adults who were blind or visually impaired.”
As the program often received international students who had English as a second language (ESL) but were not always literate in braille, or did not have any literacy skills at all, she rose to the challenge creatively.
“We didn’t have any artificial intelligence programs to help us translate,” she says. “So, I would take the student’s hand and put it on the table, and say, ‘This is a table.’ We would feel the top and the legs of the table, and then we would spell the word out in braille.”
Nobel recalls that the biggest challenge was teaching ESL students the various contractions used in braille. Contracted braille, which uses shorthand for frequently occurring words, varies between languages.
“We start teaching contractions [to English speaking students] after [they] have learned alphabetic braille (uncontracted braille),” says Nobel. “With an ESL student, however, I prefer to teach contractions for words that come up frequently in early lessons such as [the word] ‘name’.”
Accessibility concerns
Although steps have been taken to improve accessibility, Nobel acknowledges that there is still more work to be done. In 2023, TransLink implemented braille and tactile signage at over 8000 bus stops across Metro Vancouver. Currently, ASC is developing wayfinding and signage standards for federal buildings.
However, everyday items like medication and shampoo bottles often lack braille labels that she recalls seeing in Europe, where braille is written on medication boxes and even wine bottles.
“I wish we had braille labels on products like shampoo [in Canada],” she says. “I can make the labels myself to put on things, but it would be nice if I could buy it that way like you can in Europe.”
Besides inaccessibility, she notices a lack of communication to the visually impaired community about accessibility initiatives. For example, Canadian banks like CIBC and TD offer debit and credit card sleeves that are labelled in braille – initiatives she only recently discovered.
“They don’t publicize these things, so how [would we] know?” she says. “Because it’s great to have things more accessible, but if you don’t know [what] they are, then how do you know?”
Although Nobel is uncertain about future progress on inclusivity, she notes that the absence of tactile markers on touch screens has made accessibility more prominent.
“I just know that braille is very alive and very needed,” she says. “It will be needed when you decide that you don’t need print, and you can only use technology.”
For more information, see www.un.org/en/observances/braille-day
