by Christopher Gray
Recently, I bought a laptop computer. As a practical matter, I need something portable to take with me when I travel, so I can keep up with my paying, daytime job and the work of ACB as well. The unit is an IBM Thinkpad, a respectable name with excellent repair facilities and programs.
With the actual computer in hand, now I am faced with the problem of precisely what to do with it, and how to get the system set up and configured. Accessibility software must be installed. The computer must be configured in such a way that the accessible software will function reasonably well. Now, like all blind users, I must deal with visually oriented computers, and use the software that allows one to access computers in a non-visual (or limited visual) manner.
It is precisely at this point where each of us finally runs into what I call the “big lie.” The “big lie” is that “computers are accessible.”
Out of the “big lie” comes the critical distinction between accessibility and usability. Those who work with accessibility technology grapple with this distinction constantly as software is developed and equipment is made accessible.
Here is an example of the distinction between accessibility and usability. By now, many readers will have experienced the “accessible” automated teller machines that many banks are introducing into our communities. You can walk up to a specially equipped teller machine, insert an earphone, and the machine will begin talking to you. Braille markings further assist you by indicating where to insert a card and providing information on selecting keys. There was an example of such equipment at the ACB convention in Des Moines, Iowa this past summer. Most people find these talking and brailled teller machines usable.
However, can we also say that these machines are “accessible”? The answer to this extremely crucial question is “no”: “no” because there are many features available on these teller machines that have not yet been made available to blind consumers of this equipment.
Take something as simple as a balance inquiry. You can’t hear your balance on any machine I have tested thus far.
Did you wish to press the button to hear your last five transaction entries? You won’t be told what button that is, and even if you know, pressing the button will not yield the requested information.
With this very simple example, it is easy to see the distinction between usability and accessibility. One can also extrapolate the idea that the meaning of accessibility cannot be defined by a simple measurement of use. A great deal more detail needs to be incorporated into an accurate definition of what accessibility really is and what it must include.
Returning now to that laptop computer, it was not very many minutes after beginning to load accessibility software that I began to run into an abundance of issues that made using the computer a very complex and troublesome exercise. First of all, attaching external braille displays or speech synthesizers raises a host of hardware problems that must be addressed. All of the software that purports to provide access, and does the best it can, runs into issues reading screen information and getting around the software hurdles placed in the way by graphical interfaces. In one instance, the computer will talk, but 10 seconds later in an identical instance, it is utterly silent. Some screens say far too much, others say nothing even remotely helpful or even meaningful. In short, the typical blind computer user must jump through at least three hoops for every one that his or her sighted counterpart confronts. So prevalent are computers today in our society that this extra set of complex and onerous requirements poses an unfair, and more important, an unjust set of requirements on the blind user of computer-based equipment.
The problems faced in leveling the playing field between blind and sighted computer users are far bigger than any individual user can manage or resolve, more vast than can be tackled even by an organization of the size and strength of the American Council of the Blind. But we cannot afford to ignore them either. ACB has tried very hard for many years to come to the table with Microsoft and others to fashion a means of making computers and computer-based technology like cell phones fully accessible to the blind community. To date, computer hardware and software manufacturers simply have not done enough to help bridge the gap between what is accessible to a visual user as compared to a non-visual user.
Because of this lack of fundamentally meaningful cooperation on the part of major players in the computer field, particularly the software field, and because of the longstanding nature of the problems faced by blind users, I have asked ACB's information access and environmental access committees to focus significant attention on these issues and to design a strengthened blueprint for taking action. A cornerstone concept in this blueprint must be that we expect corporations to accept full responsibility for making their software and hardware accessible to blind and visually impaired users. Customizing ancillary software that allegedly allows others to make material accessible is a completely unacceptable solution on the part of manufacturers and software developers. It is a solution that we have tried and that has fundamentally failed blind consumers. It is a solution that has helped keep unemployment rates for people who are blind at an unacceptably high level. The time has come to insist that those responsible for ignoring the accessibility requirements of blind and visually impaired hardware and software users step up to the plate and remedy the situations that keep us miles behind our sighted counterparts in the field of computer access.
We blind people are not without our champions in this field. Dr. James Thatcher led the IBM Corporation’s developmental accessibility efforts for years in the field of graphical user interfaces and we have never experienced anything like the software his team created in the Microsoft Windows environment. We did, however, experience the possibility and the reality of that accessibility from committed individuals and a company acting out of responsibility to the concept of full accessibility.
Sun Microsystems is another example of a corporation committed to true accessibility, not only for visually impaired computer users, but also for people with all manner of special communications needs. Sun’s Java extensions pave the way toward a whole new definition of what accessibility can mean and what can be made accessible for disabled users. Peter Korn and his entire team of dedicated specialists has kept alive the hope of true accessibility for people who are blind and the entire disabled community.
However, the pale efforts of the strongest players in the computer field, companies like Microsoft and Adobe Systems, have done little to change definitively the face of access for blind consumers. In the months and years to come, we must make one of our major goals in ACB to turn this around and enlist the support and assistance of these leading companies in ways that truly foster access. We are working on this at many levels and will continue to do so. Access to technology represents a key bridge we must build and walk upon as we strive toward equality and independence for all blind Americans.