Rob Caslick at the opening of the Sydney exhibition for 'Lights for the Blind'.
Credit: Lights for the Blind
The panels and signs light up the Braille dots with individual LED lights.
Credit: Lights for the Blind
"90% of the 248 million visually impaired people in the world have some light perception," says Rob Caslick, an Australian mechanical engineer and industrial designer who is hoping to improve the lives of blind people.
Caslick was doing his Masters degree in industrial design in Milan, Italy, when he entered a competition to design a light. But he didn't want to make just another fancy lamp, he says, "I wanted to design a light that could assist or be of benefit to people."
Caslick was exposed to the world of the blind through an exhibition in Milan that gave visitors the unique experience of life without sight. During his tour through simulated blindness, Caslick's vision impaired guide referred to light enough times to spark his attention.
"To me it was a contradiction of my understanding of what blind is. So I did some research and found the statistic from the World Health Organisation that nine out of 10 people that are legally blind have some sort of light perception," says Caslick. "I decided to do a light that, first of all, brings to light the fact of this percentage, and [also] how important light is to the visually impaired."
He designed illuminated panels with every dot of Braille - a system of raised dots which can be read by touch - equaling one raised LED (light-emitting diode) light. The tips of the lights could be read like regular Braille, or even visually read by those with great light perception. Light perception is a level of the eyes' ability to distinguish between light and dark - some blind people can tell the difference between night and day.
According to Caslick, LED lights are the ideal source of light for illuminating Braille, as they are long lasting and heat is dissipated through the aluminium backing of the panels, so the Braille never gets too hot to touch. The contrasting white Braille on the black panel can also be read by non-sufferers when the lights are off.
After hosting a successful 'Lights for the Blind' exhibition featuring the Braille panels in Milan, Caslick brought the exhibition home to Australia. It was held at the Sydney Customs House in December 2010 and will be at Melbourne's Federation Square in June this year.
Recently, Vision Australia, a national organisation for blind and low vision people, conducted a case study on the panels at the Sydney exhibition to test their effectiveness. "We had 10 people out there with different types of light perception. What I thought was amazing was [that] most people thought they wouldn't be able to see the light, [but] eight of those people where able to notice or to use the light to locate where the Braille was," says Caslick, who added that it was an emotional experience for some.
Caslick is now developing a signage system called 'cSigns' that uses the principles from the exhibition and is also compliant with current Braille standards. Locating Braille can be hard for people with regular sight, let alone the visually impaired, so he hopes that these LED signs can become a standard for the public domain in the near future. This way the blind can use their light perception to find the LED signs and locate the Braille more easily.
