Posted on Charity Village January 4, 2005

When I worked with deaf and hard of hearing people in the 1980s, it was clear that advances in information technology would soon make community life far more accessible for people with sensory disabilities. In fact, this promise of transformation was one of the big reasons I became fascinated with technology. Unfortunately, it's taking much longer than I thought it would. There are several reasons for the delay in realizing the potential of technology for people with disabilities:

• Existing tools prevent better alternatives

  For example, e-mail, which provides an alternative to telephone conversations and is a great way for deaf people to communicate easily with the hearing world, was not adopted by the deaf community for many years because it is incompatible with TTYs (also called TDDs). TTYs, introduced in the 1960s and based on old teletype machines, were like simple e-mail appliances but could only communicate with other TTYs. By the time e-mail was introduced, there was a huge installed base of TTYs among deaf people and service providers, and the deaf community was shackled to this obsolete technology. It has taken decades to replace TTYs in favour of the more accessible and powerful e-mail, and TTYs are still around.

  This is sometimes called the ‘QWERTY problem'. Computer keyboards are arranged in the same way as their ancestral 1872 typewriters, even though the reason for the QWERTY layout (to prevent typewriter keys from sticking together) has long since disappeared. The cost of switching to a new keyboard layout for experienced typists has shackled generations of knowledge workers to a totally irrational skill. Keyboarding skills are so ingrained in fast typists that trying to learn a new layout (I tried Dvorak a few years ago in an attempt to reduce a repetitive stress injury) is a good way to simulate a mild stroke.

  You can see evidence of the QWERTY problem everywhere. I'm always amused by public washrooms that have gone through several generations of soap and paper dispensing technology – they are marked by multiple gadgets attached to the wall, and users must try several in succession to find out which is the currently stocked version. Each generation was installed in an effort to reduce costs, but after a few upgrades you end up with expensive rework (replastering the walls, retraining staff) or a junkyard. The alternative is not to change at all, and to become increasingly obsolete.

  In other words, the brilliant technical breakdown of one generation becomes the millstone of the next.

• Broadly available tools must be based on common standards

  Standards are double-edged. Old standards become barriers to innovation, as described in the previous point, but standards also provide an essential base for innovation and adoption. Early telephone systems couldn't communicate with each other because different towns used different communication standards. Like the telephone, the Web and e-mail are becoming core standards for information search and dissemination.

  People with disabilities were slow, as a population, to get access to these enabling technologies for a variety of reasons. But as most of them are becoming comfortable with basic communication technology, new solutions will be able to build on those platforms. For example, new voice recognition software is amazingly powerful, but it easily integrates into standard e-mail and word processing programs. If you already have a computer and know how to use a few basic programs, it's no big deal to take advantage of huge leaps in functionality – as long as the interfaces stay the same and it's not too difficult to learn.

• Technology is driven by markets

  People with disabilities have not been, in general, a high income group, making them an unattractive or irrelevant market for technology companies. Small and obvious technical improvements that would be tremendously useful to a disabled population can take years to achieve just because of their low priority. This situation is changing as a result of two developments.

  First, the demographic journey of us baby boomers into the land of declining vision, hearing, and mobility will make a big difference in the awareness of accessibility issues. Just wait until we stomp our collective feet about the teeny print on web sites.

  Second, major technology corporations are responding to the enormous market power of the U.S. government mobilized by a recent amendment to the U.S. Rehabilitation Act called Section 508. The U.S. government is the largest purchaser in the world, and by law, it must purchase only computer technology that is accessible to people with disabilities. There are a few exceptions, such as technology that is used solely by soldiers in the battlefield, but otherwise, all vendors must demonstrate to the government that their hardware and software products meet accessibility guidelines for a range of disabilities. As a result, all of the major software and computer companies have invested massive amounts of effort in enhancing their accessibility features. Unfortunately, most web site programmers are still not aware of how to implement these features, and most disabled consumers don't know how to use them. But they are there.

New developments and the future of humans

The distinction between people who use assistive technology and those who don't is not based on disability anymore; it's based on technical sophistication. Anyone who carries around both a mobile phone and a digital music player will see the advantage of a hearing aid that selectively amplifies or dampens external noises while automatically switching from their music to their phones when a call comes in – but only if it's a call they want to take. As the quality of hearing aids improves and the functionality of consumer gadgetry increases, they will become indistinguishable from each other. Already you can buy headphones that cancel out irritating noises like engine roar; there's no reason you couldn't block out tinnitus as well.

Another gadget that I'm looking forward to buying in the next couple of years is a pair of eyeglasses with an integrated computer display. They already exist, and are used by field-service technicians and the like, but I hear the quality isn't very good yet. I'd like to be able to see in the dark, manipulate my computer with eye movements, zoom in to see distant objects in more detail, and take photos or videos of scenes that interest me. And who wouldn't want to select visual channels based on your interests – Star Trek or a videoconference with a friend rather than staring at the old magazines in the doctor's office? Combine the wearable computer display to electrodes that transmit signals into the visual cortex, and voila – you have Jordi from Star Trek Next Generation as well as Jerry, a farmer near Napanee Ontario.

Voice recognition software that transcribes spoken words into text (as well as software that translates text into the spoken word) has been on the market for years, and steadily improving. The latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking achieves accuracy of over 98% after some training. Despite its awesome complexity, any reasonably up-to-date computer will be able to handle the processing. Text to speech software now offers different accents and 'personalities', so you can select your favourite voice to read out your e-mails or documents.

The most visible signal of disability is a wheelchair, even though wheelchair users represent a very small proportion of those with disabilities. Wheelchairs are another example of a technical achievement becoming a millstone. A well designed wheelchair is a wonder – light, compact, flexible and responsive. But it can't climb stairs or curbs, and it relegates its users to having most of their conversations at belt-buckle level. Dean Kamen, the inventor of the ridiculous Segway scooter, spent 15 years developing iBOT, a “mobility system” that can replace wheelchairs and can climb stairs, rise up to standing level. Check out the video. It costs over $25,000 US but hey, it's cheaper than renovating your house and allows you to visit your neighbours and go to restaurants. It was approved by the FDA in 2003 after extensive safety testing, and incorporates elaborate gyroscopic mechanisms.

It gets even more interesting. People who are unable to speak may soon be able to communicate through manipulating their own brain patterns. That's actually what any of us do, but we're able to move muscles through brainwaves. Some patients with locked-in syndrome, some of whom are unable even to move their eyes, are experimenting with generating alpha waves to control computer software. Others are moving a cursor around a screen just by thinking about it, wearing a helmet – no electrodes into the brain!

Steve Mann of the University of Toronto, a self-described cyborg activist, has been living as part-machine for years, and very weird he looks, too. And here's a creepy article about another cyborg activist who rewired his arm to connect directly with his computer. These guys are exploring the implications of being permanently wired, and finding fascinating issues around privacy (Steve records everything he sees through a wearable camera), attention, communication, and the potential of computer viruses that could shut down your sensory apparatus.

In a sense, we're all becoming cyborgs – part human, part machine. Many people with disabilities will benefit; either they will be able to adapt off-the-shelf consumer gadgets to meet their needs, or new tools will be developed based on consumer technology. And the rest of us will become accustomed to living technology-mediated lives, spending most of our time connected to a multitude of technical aids that we take completely for granted as extensions of ourselves.

Resistance is useless.

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Gillian Kerr, Ph.D., C.Psych.
President, RealWorld Systems

gkerr at realworldsystems.net