An Overview of the New 8-Dots Arabic Braille Coding System

Abstract

Considering the rapid technological development and especially for assistive technology, the six-point Braille system has become insufficient to meet the needs of the blind and enable them to read, write content, and, to publish accessible documents. This system is not sufficient to write and produce scientific contents that contain several symbols. Despite this need, the Arabic language still lacks an eight-point coding system. In this context, this paper aims to present a unified eight-point Braille system and present it to Arab communities to get benefit from it in developing digital content for blind people. The Arabic language differs from the Latin and other languages in the number of letters and diacritics, which makes the coding system different from the one used in these languages. In this work, we studied the symbols used in the Arabic language and the current Braille system and looked for methods and recommendations regarding the design of the eight-point Braille system. A methodology and a set of principles have been identified that have been adopted in preparing the system, and rules for coding have been established.