Technology | DOI: 10.1145/1378704.1378709
access for all
Accessible technologies are improving the lives of millions
of physically impaired people around the world.
COuNTLESS PEOPLE INTERFACE
with assistive technologies
today either because they
use them, develop them, or
both. Some technologies
have existed for years, but many more
are rapidly emerging, motivated by
fast-paced developments in science
and engineering and by the allure of
enormous potential markets.
Newly emerging technologies include mobile video phones for people
who use sign language in combination
with texting; enhanced optical character recognition and speech-synthesis
tools that read books aloud; machine-learning algorithms and positioning
sensors that enable a person in a wheelchair to better navigate an environment;
improved speech recognition hardware
for more accurately inputting verbal
commands to a computer, wheelchair,
or handheld device; and tools for designing more accessible Web sites.
More than 40 million Americans
identify themselves as having a physical disability, of which 12 million use
a computer and 17 million work full
time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Globally, the United Nations estimates more than 700 million people
have a physical disability. That figure
is expected to grow due to improved
health care and other factors that are
increasing overall life expectancies.
Factoring in the family members of
these hundreds of millions, the market
for assistive technologies encompasses
several billion persons, and universities, companies, and governments are
ramping up to meet the demand.
Profound changes are taking place
in the assistive technology industry due
to advances in compute power, signal
processing, data compression, materials science, miniaturization, cognitive
research, and the algorithms of artificial intelligence, along with a host of legal mandates and a growing awareness
that full access to technology makes
the world a happier, smarter, and more
productive place. Along with these
technological advances, a 21st-century
lexicon has emerged as well. People today talk about accessibility technology,
rather than assistive technology.
Accessibility technology guru Richard E. Ladner, a professor in computer
science and engineering at the University of Washington and winner of the
2008 A. Nico Habermann Award, notes
that people don’t want assistance; they
want fair and equal access to computers, the Internet, consumer devices,
and other aspects of 21st-century life
no matter their preferences or needs.
Ladner is also quick to point out that if
will be the ones to decide if any particular technology is part of that equation,
so one of the biggest challenges is to
find solutions that work and will also
be adopted by a community.”
Hence, a growing focus today is on
universal design, making the human-ma-chine interface fully configurable and
responsive to everybody’s needs with
technology so customizable that it’s accessible to all. That’s the goal of today’s
dynamic, constantly evolving landscape
of accessible technology research initiatives and commercial products.
“It’s a Wild West out there,” Ladner says. “In terms of the engineering
anyone expects to work in the field of
accessibility technology, they must understand the accompanying terminology and the mindset.
There are no homogenous populations of accessibility technology users
who can be lumped together by a common disability, Ladner says. There are
only individuals who will evaluate the
various accessibility tools made available and pick for themselves. “There
are lots of examples of accessibility
technology that were creative or inventive, but were never accepted,” says
Ladner. “People just want to live their
lives, to succeed, and be happy. They
alone, accessible technology research
is a wide-open field, with an infinite
number of solutions.”
accessible text
In Japan, a great deal of effort has gone
into text captioning to make video
broadcasting more accessible to people who are hearing impaired. At Kyoto
University, various projects emphasize
speech recognition and language processing for spoken text. At NHK Laboratory, part of Japan Broadcasting Corp.,
work focuses on real-time captioning
in which a TV announcer’s words are
repeated by a speaker to produce a
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