[accessibleimage] proposes solutions to us currency access problem

Dear accessibleImage:

there's an interesting article in the New York Times where a bunch of
graphic designers proposed different ways to make US currency more
accessible. For people who aren't following this story, there was a recent
court decision here that recognizes that US currency is not usable by people
who can't see the denomination markings.  This has led to speculation among
graphic artists and others about how to solve this problem in a way that
doesn't require retooling all of the vending machines and other equipment
that was designed based on the assumption that all paper money is the same
size.  One of the ideas described in the article was very cute, although I
don't know how practical.  They proposed placing small tactile figures on
each bill based on the the president whose picture is on that bill.   They
propose using a cherry shape for George Washington (on the one, because he
allegedly chopped down a cherry tree as a child), a stove pipe hat for
Lincoln (for the five), a pistol for Alexander Hamilton (which is funny,
because the thing Hamilton is most famous for is being killed in a duel), a
star for U.S. Grant, who was a famous general (on the 50) and a kite-shape
for Benjamin Franklin (for the 100 dollar note), in recognition of his
famous experiments on electricity. Making US currency more accessible is an
interesting Universal Design problem, and it will be interesting to see what
ends up happening. Maybe we accessibleImage list recipients should put our
heads together to come up with a good proposal, and then pitch it to the US
Government. After all, members of this group knows more about tactile
graphics than anyone.  If anybody has a good idea to help us retrograde
Americans fix this problem, I would be very interested to know about it.

Thanks
Steve Landau
Touch Graphics, Inc.

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