contributed articles
APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE is concerned with the
development of algorithms, applications, software,
services, methods and measures, and hardware and
devices. Excellent work continues to be done to make
information technology accessible and usable for
people with disabilities. For example, a number of
familiar consumer technologies started out designed
to provide access to people with disabilities, including
the audiobook, speech recognition, captioning, and
speech output (screen readers). Speech recognition
enables hands-free computing, which is useful in
situations like driving. Captioning of videos renders
them available to text-based search algorithms but
also makes video consumable when ambient sound
levels are high, as in airports and gyms. Audiobooks,
which began as a way for blind people
to access reading material, are now
everyday companions for travelers and
commuters everywhere.
9
In a 2012 Communications column,
former ACM president Vinton G. Cerf
highlighted the importance and difficulty of designing and developing accessible computing systems, making a
public call for ideas and reports on success stories and experiences.
5
Despite the long-term focus on
making technology accessible for people with disabilities, the computing
profession has not focused on making
itself inclusive of people with disabilities; such people remain highly underrepresented at all levels and roles,
including practitioner, researcher,
student, and teacher.
4 Although the
percentage of undergraduate students
with disabilities in technology-related
majors is fairly representative of the
worldwide population as a whole, it is
estimated that less than 1% of students
who earned Ph.D.’s in computer science (as of 2011) identify as students
with disabilities.
13 People with disabilities bring diverse perspectives to the
design of technology. Like Cerf, the authors of this article believe becoming
more inclusive will be of great benefit
to ACM and to technology in general.
It is thus important to examine the
barriers that exist and determine, as a
professional organization, how we can
overcome them. This makes strategic
and tactical sense; for a professional
organization that wants to increase
membership, there are many potential
community members with disabilities
Making
the Field
of Computing
More Inclusive
DOI: 10.1145/2993420
More accessible conferences, digital resources,
and ACM SIGs will lead to greater participation
by more people with disabilities.
BY JONATHAN LAZAR, ELIZABETH F. CHURCHILL,
TOVI GROSSMAN, GERRIT VAN DER VEER, PHILIPPE PALANQUE,
JOHN “SCOOTER” MORRIS, AND JENNIFER MANKOFF
key insights
˽ People with disabilities are a potential
source of ideas and additional membership
for professional computing organizations.
˽ Including people with disabilities in
the decision-making processes of
professional computing organizations
ensures the most important barriers
are addressed first.
˽ Processes developed over years are
needed to make physical conferences
and their related digital content
accessible to people with disabilities.