Knitting for the blind
Ilana Rabinowitz writes:
I handle the marketing for a knit and crochet website. In response to an
email from a blind knitter who wanted to use our patterns, we programmed
a template so that all of our over 1,000 free patterns could be ready by
a Brailler machine, that creates Braille from text or by a text to
speech reader. The response was overwhelming, with the most (in terms
of enthusiasm and quantity) positive comments we have every received.
Our site has been up since 1995. Most people who responded were not
blind. They just appreciated what we did so much that they swore to buy
our product exclusively from now on. Our next programming adjustment
will be to make all of our patterns available in large type. Now that is
a LOT of people, but the motivation to do this evolved from our first
modification when we realized that appealing to people with special
needs (these very targeted niches) was good all around.