The Reality Reports

People often judge a rule while knowing how it will affect them. A homeowner may view a tax differently from a renter. A healthy person may give less thought to medical access than someone with a serious illness. The philosopher John Rawls proposed a way to step outside these personal interests. His thought experiment asks people to design society without knowing the position they will occupy within it.

Braille turns patterns of raised dots into information that can be read through touch. People use it for books, labels, signs, mathematics, music, technology, and many other parts of daily life. Braille is a code rather than a separate language. English, Spanish, French, and numerous other languages can be represented with braille symbols and rules.

Captions turn the important audio in a video into synchronized text. They provide access for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, but their value reaches further. Captions can also help viewers understand unclear speech, unfamiliar accents, or difficult subjects. People may use captions while learning a language, watching in a noisy room, or keeping the sound low around others. Viewers who have difficulty processing spoken information may benefit from seeing and hearing the same message together.