Leadership: Perspectives from Ron McCallum

Leadership: Perspectives from Ron McCallum

Braille MonitorNovember 2016

(back) (contents) (next)

Digital Accessibility: Changes for the Good, and Challenges for the Present and Future
by Gary Wunder
Introduction by Immediate Past President Maurer: I wanted to offer comment about this article because I was present when these remarks were delivered, and I thought they were worth hearing. Gary Wunder made a presentation to the World Blind Union General Assembly in August of 2016 which I felt showed a great deal of thought. The World Blind Union has had a technology committee for many years, and the organization considers technology in its meetings occasionally. However the program of the organization is not as robust as it might be. The suggestions in the address by Gary Wunder are worth consideration.

Members of the National Federation of the Blind know Gary Wunder as the editor of the Braille Monitor. However, he also has other roles. He is trained in computer technology. He served as a developer of computer programming for a university hospital in Missouri. He has been the chairperson of the web developers group within the National Federation of the Blind. He has been president of the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri for decades. He has been a member of the board of directors of the National Federation of the Blind. He has served as a trusted advisor to the President of the National Federation of the Blind with regard to technology and internal political matters. He has both courage and generosity. With all of this, he is a gentle man and a gentleman.

At the World Blind Union General Assembly the panel discussion regarding technology included Gary Wunder’s presentation. The digital divide is at least as great for the blind of the world as it is for anybody else and perhaps greater. The speed at which technology is being created that requires vision is increasing. The danger is evident. What the future will bring is yet to be known. How can the problem be addressed? Gary Wunder offers a notable answer. I hope that the World Blind Union takes action in the direction he suggests. Here is what he said:
In my lifetime I have known the deprivation one feels when information is presented on white paper that is blank to the touch; the joy of knowing there is a way for me to read using my fingers; the discouragement in learning that the further along I got in school, the less likely it would be that my teachers could read my Braille; the exhilaration when realizing that more and more of the world's information was being born digitally or could easily be converted to this format; and the absolute exasperation when learning that this digital information could be created in such a way that it would be every bit as inaccessible as the white paper that so frustratingly kept its secrets.

Digitization makes it easier not only to read but to write. Now a first draft written on a computer is revised and refined; material is inserted, deleted, or moved, a process far easier than when, in my school days, writing a second draft or a final paper meant completely retyping it and hoping not to introduce new mistakes.

Digitization would mean that less Braille had to be transcribed by hand. Others were using digital means to create and distribute their work. Getting and reading this digitally born material should bring about uncharted opportunities for information. Add to this the increasing affordability and accuracy of technology that could take print from the page and make it digital, and for a time I thought that one of the major problems of blindness had been solved. Soon our organizations could turn their full attention to other things, the written word having been made universally available to all.

Well the bright future that would change our organizational priorities hasn't quite come to pass. Computers have become more powerful, but the text-based systems that initially were used to operate these marvels have given way to easier-to-use visual techniques. It is easier for a sighted person to find and point at a picture than it is for her to remember the name of a command. Navigating a screen where choices are listed is easier than remembering all of the parameters to make the program do what one wants. Pictures are a part of the real world for the sighted, so it should be no surprise that pictures have come to be a vital part of the virtual world one sees while at his computer screen.

Now the problem isn't pictures on computer screens or pointing and clicking to make things happen. These are good things that make the computer a friendlier device for the vast majority of the population. The problem is that pictures or icons too often replace words, and the mouse too often replaces keyboard alternatives. Blind people are excluded when only visual alternatives are considered in the design of technology. In some of this technology, the keyboard is useless in making a program work, and some programs are so visual that current screen-reading technology can't tell that buttons, checkboxes, combo boxes, and other controls even appear on the screen.

Like the physical world, equality in the digital world requires that blind people express our needs, participate in figuring out how to meet them, and become sufficiently active and politically sophisticated enough to have them addressed. In the National Federation of the Blind this has meant being active on four fronts: evaluating existing technology and participating in research and development to make it better; supporting and leaning on the assistive technology companies; prodding, pressuring, and eventually working with mainstream technology developers to include accessibility in their products; and asking government to help with regulations to clarify that the law of the land demands access to the digital world in the same way it does the physical one. Each of these tasks is incredibly difficult, but we are making progress. Providing meaningful comments about how to get the access we need requires people who understand how computers and screen readers work. Assistive technology developers are reluctant to share how they get the information they use or how they plan to get it in the future. Too often they cling to techniques that have worked in the past but which are now being made obsolete by the requirements of companies for greater security and stability. Mainstream companies too often see us as a minor and even an insignificant part of their customer base. They tend to see accessibility as a nice thing to do, but not if it gets in the way of a new or improved product that contains a feature they believe will make them outshine their competitors.

Eventually we turn to government, the entity that should represent us, not just because we are full-fledged citizens but because not having access leads to idleness, unemployment, and a greater burden on taxpayers. But government is reluctant to act; it fears that looking out for the blind may stifle innovation, fears being regarded as less friendly to business, and shrinks at the charge that it wishes to create new regulations, the very words being linked in much of the public's mind with an overly intrusive regime.

Four challenges—four big challenges—but we accept and embrace them because to do otherwise would be to accept defeat, to abandon our journey toward first-class citizenship, and to forsake our dream of participating in society on equal terms with the sighted.

So, how are we doing? You can see for yourselves that we have in this gathering from around the world knowledgeable people who understand the complexity of the computers we need to access, and they are offering input and help to the developers of assistive technology and working actively with mainstream providers so that many of the devices coming to market today that involve reading and writing are accessible out of the box. Is the change as fast as we would like it to be? No. Do companies sometimes release things that are inaccessible? Yes they do. But our progress is measurable, our opportunities are increasing, and more and more we are coming to be seen as worthwhile partners who, in meeting our needs, help mainstream businesses build products that more fully meet the needs of the diverse populations they wish to serve.

Thus far I've been talking about technology used in reading and writing, but other digital technology is found all around us, and some of it, if not made accessible, will truly be handicapping. Let's start in the home. Today's equipment for cooking and cleaning is becoming ever more digital. One seldom finds a stove or oven with rotatable knobs that can easily be labeled. Instead we find buttons that must be seen to be pressed, menus that must be seen to be navigated, and no means of nonvisual output that can be used to determine the temperature of our oven or the remaining time on its timer. The washing machine poses the same problem. How do we specify the size of the load; whether we want hot, warm, or cold water; whether the load is delicate or requires intense washing? The options are there, but all require vision. Many do not have feelable buttons that can be memorized and pressed with confidence that one won't ruin the clothes in the machine.

Unlike communication, there are no laws in our country pushing industry to build accessible home appliances. Without laws we are hard-pressed to exert the same pressure that has worked with some success in the information industry. There is, of course, a solid moral argument to be made, but how does one convince a company that morality deserves a place on a statement in which the bottom line is a number representing the percentage of profit and loss? Unless we make headway on accessible home appliances, we face the very real prospect that a fully capable auto mechanic, teacher, lawyer, or physicist may not be able to function independently when wishing to live alone and maintain a home. We don't intend to let this happen, but the prospect is more than a doomsday thesis around which some novel is based.

One additional challenge faces us as we seek to avoid drowning in the digital divide. Tremendous advances are being made in medical equipment. Conditions which would once have required a prolonged hospital stay can now be treated at home given equipment for monitoring and treatment. The equipment communicates using a digital display but makes no provision for nonvisual access. Sometimes input is through a touchscreen, sometimes through buttons one cannot easily feel, and sometimes using buttons which are activated not by a press but by a simple touch. Even when buttons are detectable, too often there is no confirmation that one has been pushed or that a longer-than-intended push has resulted in the machine concluding two or more presses were intended. All of this screams of danger and discrimination. It threatens our ability to take care of ourselves, our children, our parents, and others who could benefit from our competent care and compassion.
What I intend to impart today is not a bleak picture for our future but the challenges we must meet to have the future we want. As long as we can articulate our needs, marshal the resources to meet them, and bend the laws of our nations so that they acknowledge our right to live independently, these things we now see as problems will appear in the history books as accomplishments, not stumbling blocks. They will not be what stopped us but what pushed us, both to solutions that solve today's problems and that provide foundational answers for the challenges of tomorrow. We must win because there is just too much at stake to lose. Working together, we will have access that is affordable and efficient, and we will take our place as productive members of our societies. This is the promise we make to ourselves, and we always keep our promises, not only for the blind of today but the blind of tomorrow. Let us do this together!

Media Share

// maxLength) {
twtTitle = twtTitle.substr(0, (maxLength - 3)) + '...';
}
var twtLink = 'http://twitter.com/home?status=' + encodeURIComponent(twtTitle + ' ' + twtUrl);
document.write('');
// ]]>

function fbs_click()
{
u=location.href;
t=document.title;
window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdev.twitter.com%2Fp…;);
return false;
}

(back) (contents) (next)