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.