Dot has launched a new Tactile Display API for its Dot Pad, giving blind users more ways to access digital content using braille and tactile graphics.
Released in September, the new technology works with the JAWS and NVDA screen readers and allows users to access multi-line braille, tactile graphics and structured information within familiar Windows applications.
Users can choose to display six, eight or ten lines of braille at once, providing more information without having to continually move through content. The technology can also turn digital information into tactile graphics that can be explored by touch.
This opens up some particularly useful possibilities for education and employment. For example, blind students can access tactile graphs created from mathematical expressions in Microsoft Word or MathML on web pages, while people working with Excel can explore data trends and changes through tactile charts.
The new Dot Pad Display Viewer also supports collaboration between blind and sighted users by allowing a teacher, colleague or trainer to see on screen which dots the user is exploring on the tactile display.
The Tactile Display API is available through a new add-on for NVDA 2026.2 and later, as well as an installable component for PCs using JAWS for Windows 2026 and later.
The new technology gives blind users more ways to access digital content through braille and touch. In particular, it could make information such as graphs, diagrams and charts easier to explore, giving users another way to access content that can be difficult to convey through text or audio alone.
To find out more, read Dot’s announcement on the new Tactile Display API.