Celebrating National Braille Week and World Sight Day

This week is National Braille Week, and tomorrow is World Sight Day. These events raise awareness of people with vision impairments across the world, and the problems they may face in life. The events also celebrate Braille and other alternative formats which can help people become more independent. 

We know that being told you have cancer can be a huge shock. But if you are one of the 2 million people in the UK living with sight loss, this can be even more of a challenge. Getting the information you need in a way you can use it is vital.

Research from the RNIB shows that reading is often a very high priority for blind and partially sighted people. But it can be hard for them to find information in a suitable format, as is shown by David’s story.

David’s story
David has been living with metastatic prostate cancer for seven years. David is also blind. He isn’t able to read our printed booklets and leaflets, but he chooses to access information about his diagnosis and treatment by using a screen reader on his computer – watch David’s story below.

Our website is optimized for screen readers, like the one David uses. This means we add clear descriptions of all our images and make the content as easy for everyone to access as possible. Screen readers read out menus and buttons, web pages and documents to help you use the computer if you can’t see the screen.

We have information in other formats, too
At Macmillan, our aim is to reach everyone affected by cancer, and we produce our information in a range of formats to meet people’s different needs.

People with vision impairment may like to access information in various ways, which will depend on their own experience and preferences. We have top-quality information about cancer available in the following formats:

• Braille (on request)
• Large print (on request)
• Audio
• Video
• eBooks
• Interactive PDFs
• Easy read

And, as well as being optimized for screen readers, there are other ways you can make our website easier to use. For example you can:

• Use the keyboard to move around – by using the ‘Tab’ button on the keyboard, and using 'Enter' to click on links and buttons.
• Make things bigger by using the zoom and magnifier – to use the zoom, press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘+’ or ’-’ on the keyboard. The magnifier lets you look at small areas of the screen at a much bigger size.
• Change the colours and fonts – changing the colour can increase or decrease the contrast, or invert the colours. You can also make the font size of web pages bigger.
• Use your voice – to talk to your computer. You can open programmes and do other tasks using your voice. Your computer comes with voice recognition programmes.

You can find out more about these options here.

If you have a comment about our different formats, or would like information in Braille or large print, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at cancerinformationteam@macmillan.org.uk

To see what else Macmillan's cancer information team has been blogging about, please visit our blog home page! You can subscribe to receive our blogs by email or RSS too.

We're with you every step of the way

The Macmillan team is here to help. Our cancer support specialists can answer your questions, offer support, or simply listen if you need a chat. Call us free on 0808 808 00 00.

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