An Investigation of the Height of Embossed Braille Dots for Labels on Pharmaceutical Products

Graeme Douglas, Annette Weston, Jennifer Whittaker, Sarah Morley Wilkins, and Duncan Robinson European legislation requires new pharmaceutical packaging to include both the name and strength of the drug in braille on boxes and bottles (European Commission, 2005). Much of the braille on medical packaging is currently produced by an embossing process on boxes. The height of the dots that can be achieved through these methods is less than .3 mm. The physical dimensions of the braille cell are not fully standardized throughout different countries in Europe (European Commission, 2006) or the world (Foulke, 1982; Gardner, 2005; Tiresias, 2006). This lack of standardization can be illustrated by the lack of consistency on the agreed “standard” height of braille dots in different countries (Tiresias, 2006), for example, American National Library for the Blind, 0.5 mm; Sweden, 0.25 mm; England (Interline/Interpoint), .46 mm; and France, .8 to 1.0 mm. Although no rationale could be found in the literature to explain why standards are set at particular heights (or to explain the reason for the variation among countries), the evidence seems to point to specifications being “equipment driven,” rather than “user driven” (Foulke, 1982; Gardner, 2005).