Why braille appears on signs, lifts and medicine boxes

Signage is regulated, not decorative

Where the law requires braille on a sign, the law is specific. In the United States the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design set the geometry in a table: a dot base 0.059 to 0.063 inches across, a dot 0.025 to 0.037 inches high, dots within a cell 0.090 to 0.100 inches apart centre to centre, and corresponding dots in the next cell along 0.241 to 0.300 inches apart. Cells on the line below sit 0.395 to 0.400 inches down. Dots must be domed or rounded rather than flat-topped. A sign whose braille looks right but is spaced outside those ranges does not meet the standard. The full table, with tolerances and the clause behind each figure, is set out separately.

On an American sign the braille is Grade 2

The ADA standards require it outright: signage braille “shall be contracted (Grade 2)”. So contracted braille is not a stylistic choice on an American sign, it is the specification — which is what the Grade 2 setting in the translator produces. The braille goes below the corresponding text, below all of it where the text runs to several lines, and at least 3/8 inch clear of any other raised character, border or decoration.

The capital-sign mistake

Raised text on an ADA sign must be uppercase, but the braille under it must not copy that. The standard allows the capital indicator only before the first word of a sentence, a proper noun or name, an individual letter, an initial or an acronym — so a door reading STAFF ONLY in raised letters takes no capital signs at all in the braille beneath. Marking every word as capitals breaks that rule, and the cost is measurable: STAFF ONLY set in capitals spends four cells it is not allowed to spend.

Medicine packaging

In the European Union the requirement is Article 56a of Directive 2001/83/EC, inserted by Directive 2004/27/EC: the name of the medicinal product “must also be expressed in Braille format on the packaging”. The name it points at is the one defined in Article 54(a) — the product name followed by its strength and pharmaceutical form. The same article requires the package leaflet to be made available, on request from patients' organisations, in formats appropriate for blind and partially-sighted people.

The American figures and clauses on this page were read in the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, and the European ones in the two directives, on 11 October 2026.

Lift buttons

The same standard covers lifts. Car control buttons are identified by raised characters, with the raised and braille designations placed immediately to the left of the button (407.4.7.1), and each floor is marked in raised characters and braille on both jambs of the lift entrance (407.2.3.1). A number there takes the number sign followed by the letter that stands for the digit — which is why the designation for floor 1 reads as the number sign plus the letter a.

For six control buttons the standard gives the braille message and counts its cells (Table 407.4.7.1.3): stop three, alarm four, open three, close five, main three, phone four. The Grade 2 translator here writes each in that number: stop ⠌⠕⠏, alarm ⠁⠇⠜⠍, open ⠕⠏⠢, close ⠉⠇⠕⠎⠑, main ⠍⠁⠔ and phone ⠏⠓⠐⠕.

The other braille guides cover how it is written, read and graded.