messaging. By the early 2000s, they
could talk at a distance to their friends
in sign language using a Sorenson video
phone, a set-top box for a television
that was connected to a camera and
the Internet. By the early 1990s,
virtually all broadcast television shows
had closed captions, text on the screen
that matched what was being spoken
in real time. These are probably the
most important technologies that
have helped transform the lives of deaf
people, but there are many more. None
of these could have happened without
the innovations and community action
by deaf people. The inventor of the
acoustic modem was a deaf man, Robert
Weitbrecht, and the promotion of the
T T Y was by two other deaf men, James
Marsters and Andrew Saks [ 1]. Deaf
organizations lobbied vigorously to
mandate that captioning technology
be part of every television set, which
happened in 1990 along with the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
It is interesting to note that the
three technologies mentioned above—
personal texting, captioned video,
and personal video phones—are all
now ubiquitous technologies used by
everyone, not just deaf people. This is
not an uncommon occurrence. Other
examples of technologies inspired by
their use by people with disabilities
include optical character recognition
(OCR) and speech synthesis to enable
blind people to read books, speech
recognition for all people who cannot
use their hands to interact with a
computer, and the electric toothbrush,
which was originally designed for
people who had limited motor skills.
There are also the serendipitous cases
where a technology intended to solve
a problem for people with disabilities
instead gets used to create an entire
new industry. Such an example is the
telephone, invented by Alexander
Graham Bell. As a speech teacher
of deaf children, Bell tried to invent
a system whereby children could
see their speech instead of hear it
in order to help them speak better
[ 2]. This required inventing a device
that could transform speech sounds
into electronic signals. It was already
known how to transmit electronic
signals on wires with the telegraph,
so with Bell’s invention the electronic
signals representing speech sounds
could be transmitted as well. Ironically,
Bell’s invention was not usable by deaf
people until the invention of the T TY
generations later.
DESIGN FOR ACCESSIBILITY
In a sense, the TT Y made the telephone
accessible and closed captions made
television accessible to deaf people.
Let me give another concrete example:
the screen reader, software that
enables a blind person to read and
navigate a computer screen to access
the operating system, applications,
and websites. Instead of seeing the
screen, a screen-reader user listens to
text on the screen being spoken and
uses shortcut keys to navigate around
the screen. Initially, screen readers
were additional third-party software
that had to be added to an existing
system to provide access. As you might
imagine, screen readers’ manufacturers
were always playing catch-up with the
latest versions of operating systems
and applications. This began to change
in 2005, when Apple included a screen
reader called VoiceOver on Mac OS
X 10. 4. VoiceOver was built in to the
system, rather than being something
to add on to the system. Even more
transformational was the introduction
of Voice Over to the i Phone 3GS in
2009 and later the iPod Touch. These
touchscreen devices were initially
considered inaccessible because there
were no tactile indicators for a blind
person to use. In a seminal paper,
Shaun Kane et al. demonstrated that
touchscreen devices can be made
accessible using a very simple principle:
Exploring the screen with one finger
allows the screen elements to be read
aloud without activating anything,
and once an element is read, it can be
activated by a gesture that does not
occur during exploration, such as a
spit tap or a double tap [ 3]. VoiceOver
for the iPhone uses this principle to
allow access and it is built into the iOS
system, available to anyone.
Universal design. The iPhone
is an example of universal design,
which is a design that allows a great
diversity of users, particularly those
with disabilities, the ability to use the
system. The concept of universal design
originated in the field of architecture
to emphasize designs that allow for a
diversity of users, including those in
wheelchairs [ 4]. One misconception
about universal design is it requires a
one-size-fits-all solution. What it really
means is the availability of options. A
Figure 1. Accessibility and VoiceOver
screens for iOS. Note the ability
to adjust the speaking rate.
COVER STORY