The Mountbatten Brailler developed for the blind and the visually impaired finally has a 21st century appearance, thanks to the team of Polish studio Metaphor.
The design team of Polish Metaphor reinvented one of the iconic products of Polish company Harpo manufacturing electronic Braille typewriters, the Mountbatten Brailler device. The first model of the typewriter facilitating the everydays of the visually impaired was launched in 1991, and provided a much simpler and more comfortable use for people with disabilities compared to its mechanical predecessors. The machine can be used both by sighted and visually impaired people, as it functions as the combination of a typewriter and a translation device: we can connect the keyboard of our PC to it, and then the machine translates the text we typed to Braille (and vice versa).
Mountbatten is known and used all over the world, however, owing to the members of the Metaphor team, the device was once again taken to the next level. The designers also invited experts, researchers, and visually impaired people to participate in the development process, resulting in an ergonomic product with clean lines, which is adjusted more to the current trends than the previous colorful (and perhaps a little bit flippant and childlike) version. The most important modification is that they divided the keyboard from the printing unit, thus creating a less robust, inclusive product that can be mobilized more easily.
Source: White Mad
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