I haven't looked it up, but I can't imagine this is acceptable under the ADA. For the vast majority of blind people I guess this would just be an incomprehensible bunch of bumps, failing in the accessibility mission.
Most people who are blind lost their sight as adults[0], and less than 10% of people who are blind can read Braille[1], so this font is already probably readable by more blind people than Braille is.
I'm not so sure. There are enough tactile alphabets that can be possibly decoded by who became blind recently, but they are sufficiently similar to the original alphabet when touched, unlike Fakoo's artificial 3x3 grid. And those tactile alphabets were not well received by blinds anyway; Braille is literally the most successful tactile alphabet (yes, even at the current <10% usages) and its success seems to prefer long-term efficiency over familiarity.
Dot-based tactile alphabets are far more readable than other types, because dots maximize the number of broken paper fibers sticking up vertically out of the tops of the paper to tickle the fingertips, which is what Braille readers actually feel when reading - they don't actually try to feel the bumps, they instead feel the much higher frequency stimulation from the raised fibers that reach above the bumps (I apologize for not having a citation on this, I spent a great deal of time 20 years ago researching tactile technology for the blind, and this was a highly surprising and broadly known and reproduced result at the time).
Only because they haven't learned it. If you gave Braille to a blind person who has never experienced it before, they would also find it to an incomprehensible bunch of bumps failing in the accessibility mission.
At least with Fakoo, someone who used to be able to see letters before going blind, could probably figure out Fakoo without instruction.
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Does ADA legislation in the US allow use of a font like this, or does the legislation explicitly require Braille text?
I haven't looked it up, but I can't imagine this is acceptable under the ADA. For the vast majority of blind people I guess this would just be an incomprehensible bunch of bumps, failing in the accessibility mission.
Most people who are blind lost their sight as adults[0], and less than 10% of people who are blind can read Braille[1], so this font is already probably readable by more blind people than Braille is.
[0]https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/blindness-a...
[1]https://nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/pdf/braille_literacy_re...
I'm not so sure. There are enough tactile alphabets that can be possibly decoded by who became blind recently, but they are sufficiently similar to the original alphabet when touched, unlike Fakoo's artificial 3x3 grid. And those tactile alphabets were not well received by blinds anyway; Braille is literally the most successful tactile alphabet (yes, even at the current <10% usages) and its success seems to prefer long-term efficiency over familiarity.
Dot-based tactile alphabets are far more readable than other types, because dots maximize the number of broken paper fibers sticking up vertically out of the tops of the paper to tickle the fingertips, which is what Braille readers actually feel when reading - they don't actually try to feel the bumps, they instead feel the much higher frequency stimulation from the raised fibers that reach above the bumps (I apologize for not having a citation on this, I spent a great deal of time 20 years ago researching tactile technology for the blind, and this was a highly surprising and broadly known and reproduced result at the time).
Only because they haven't learned it. If you gave Braille to a blind person who has never experienced it before, they would also find it to an incomprehensible bunch of bumps failing in the accessibility mission.
At least with Fakoo, someone who used to be able to see letters before going blind, could probably figure out Fakoo without instruction.