Production Method of Readable Tactile Map With Vocal Guidance Function for the Visually Impaired

Background

In this section, how to develop a production method for tactile maps of public facilities with high readability and advanced technology to guarantee information accessibility is discussed.

People acquire the majority of information visually. Therefore, various attempts have been conducted to guarantee information accessibility for those with visual impairment (American Foundation for the Blind, 2018; Royal National Institute of Blind People, 2018). In the future, the provision of shared services in which the same printed products can be used regardless of visual impaired persons or sighted persons, is desired to move toward an inclusive society from the perspective of “improvement of information gap” and “universal information design”. Under above mentioned circumstances, Braille and tactile maps produced by the silk screen printing method using colorless and transparent ultraviolet cured ink have been printed on picture books in recent years. Therefore, providing a shared service in which children and people with visual impairment and sighted persons can both use the same picture books (Universal Design Picture Book Center, 2018) is beneficial. The silk screen printing method is one printing method based on universal design that creates tactile maps by using Braille, raised dots, raised lines, and raised planar patterns. It can print on various materials such as papers, plastic, and metals and is much more durable compared with traditional other printing methods. Furthermore, it is able to print Braille and tactile maps on visual characters. This method may be applied to the tactile maps of various public facilities. However, the issues of the silk screen printing method make it difficult to express detailed images, and the height of Braille/tactile map is occasionally not sufficient. Some Braille/tactile maps are difficult to read, and improvement in printing quality is necessary. Additionally, the silk screen printing method is not well suited to print a small number of Braille or tactile maps. Therefore, this method is not financially feasible to suit the need of each user.