Creating Accessible Technologies — Practical Ways to Enable Youth to Reach Their Potential and to Overcome Barriers Faced in Employment, Education and Daily Living
A Forum — December 8, 2000
Gregg C. Vanderheiden, founder and director of Trace Research & Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shared information on trends in telecommunication and information technologies, including their potential to increase the opportunities or increase the barriers faced by youth with disabilities as they prepare for and enter the job market. Vanderheiden highlighted how careful attention to access considerations up front can positively impact the functional abilities and productivity of individuals with a wide range of disabilities. He discussed a number of key points related to the use of technology by youth with disabilities.
(1) Universal Design
To ensure the creation of accessible technology, one must pay attention to who will use it, how many people will use it, how practical and affordable it is and who will produce the product on a mass scale. If businesses are not able to make a profit from a product, they will not produce it. It is, therefore, essential that we not only develop techniques which meet the needs of people with disabilities, but also develop solutions that are commercially practical, cost effective, and attractive to the mass market so that companies can produce and market them as highly profitable mainstream products. Assistive technologies will also always be needed and have their place. However, in general, assistive technologies cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technology. Wherever possible, access should therefore be built into standard products.
Building access features within the design of a product can also benefit more than just people with disabilities. For example, since 1993 it has been mandatory for television manufacturers in the United States to include closed captioned decoders in their products. This feature would never have been added except for people who have disabilities. It is now very widely used by many different groups who do not have disabilities, including sports bars, fitness centers, people learning English as a second language.
(2) Technology is changing – creating new challenges but also opportunities
Today, technology is more powerful and less expensive than ever before. For example, an inexpensive Nintendo game player has more power than the Cray Super Computer did 1985. Also, technology now has unprecedented flexibility and ability to adapt to the needs of different users. To help the audience understand the adaptability of technology, Vanderheiden presented several examples of the changes in technology over time.
(a) Hardware used to be open, now it is closed. Computers and products used to be able to be opened and new cards and accessories could be inserted. Newer versions and information appliances are no longer being released that are easily reprogrammed by the users. Older approaches therefore will not always work – new approaches will be needed.
(b) Interfaces used to be hard programmed, now they are soft programmed. The buttons on a telephone used to manually depress a switch that completed an oscillator circuit and generated the tones that you heard when dialing. Now, depressing the button simply causes a signal to go to the microprocessor in the phone telling it that a certain button has been depressed. The software instructions in the microprocessor then determine what happens (for example, generating a tone). By changing only the software, the functions of the buttons and the behavior of the phone can be varied to meet different needs.
(c) Information used to be physical, now it is electronic. Newspapers, books, and libraries used to be comprised of only hard copy printed materials, thus making their accessibility difficult for people who are blind, those with low vision, and those who can not read or who have physical difficulties precluding them from holding a book or magazine. Information is now available electronically, making it easier to translate into speech, and increasing its accessibility to a greater audience of people. This technology transfers to forms, tests and other material previously only obtained in a printed version.
(d) Technology used to be standard, now it is multi-standard. In the past there were only a few standard operating systems such as DOS, Windows, Mac OS, etc. Now we are finding an expanding number of products that have custom operating systems for which adaptations or extensions are not available. The pocket PCs that run Windows actually have different processors and, therefore, programs that run on one pocket PC in Windows may not run another pocket PC.
(e) Information technology used to be stationary, now it is mobile. People used to sit at a stationary workstation and use a full size screen and keyboard. Increasingly, people are using mobile technologies that may not have a keyboard, and may have a very small screen or no screen at all, etc. People are now free to take their office with them wherever they go.
(f) We used to be disconnected, now we are interconnected. Most information technologies used on a personal level were disconnected, operated as stand alone systems. Now, everything is being interconnected, opening up new problems and new potential. Wireless products produced by major manufacturers such as Texas Instruments or Motorola may use Bluetoothä radio frequency connectivity technology to allow products to speak to each other. Each product has a small low-powered radio built into them and can interconnect with other products just by being brought within about a 30’ range.
(g) We now have alternate and multiple interfaces. Since many new products are software based, adding additional behaviors can be done by slightly extending the instruction set. Once the instructions for accessibility have been developed, the cost of manufacturing is low. The only manufacturing cost is the need for slightly more memory, and those costs are dropping.
Advantages for persons with disabilities:
Vanderheiden used the telephone as an example of the advantages of new technology. Software added to the phone can add many types of accessibility, including compatibility with a TTY machine, for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing; a phone that speaks the numbers of each button when you touch it and a phone with large print, for vision impaired and blind individuals; a phone that responds to voice commands, or a phone or keyboard that ignores extra key touches, for individuals with a disability that causes them to have tremors.
Disadvantages for persons with disabilities:
Vanderheiden also provided several cautions about technology. Because systems are no longer standard, some persons with disabilities could instantly lose access to adaptive software when their school or workplace purchases new hardware. Or they may be able to use the technology at school, but not at home.
Unfamiliarity with new software can put anyone at a disadvantage, for example "many of us forget to hit the send button when using a cell phone, or can’t program a VCR," says Vanderheiden. People who may have been "power users" of a technology may find themselves "disabled" and unable to use it because a barrier has emerged in newer versions of the technology. In the 90s, computers became easier to use by more people when the Windows operating system was introduced, but the sweeping takeover of this new technology phased out the older DOS operated computers that provided an easier environment for the blind. Another potential barrier might be schools that only test students using computers where adaptations are not allowed or available.
Vanderheiden recommends that policymakers consider ways of working with information technology companies to develop technology with universal appeal that also helps all individuals with disabilities. The needs of people with disabilities need to be addressed during the research and design process, not later when barriers are suddenly noticed. Many companies are already farsighted and have embedded a variety of adaptive technologies in their products in ways that can be beneficial to all users, without getting in the way of those who do not need them.
Recent achievements of the Trace Center include co-authoring of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and development of the EZ™ Access techniques for providing cross-disability access in electronic products of all types, including cross-disability accessible cell phone reference designs. This technology is currently available in kiosk systems, including a new voting kiosk, and an ATM prototype.
This brief is from an American Youth Policy Forum held on December 8, 2000 on Capitol Hill as reported by Donna Walker.
James.AYPF’s events and policy reports are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Electric Fund, William T. Grant Foundation, George Gund Foundation, Walter S. Johnson Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation, NEC Foundation of America, Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds, and others.