Differing Abilities

Imagine your deafened grandfather knowing that any PCA (Personal Communications Assistant) he wants to buy will let him communicate over the phone lines wherever he is. Should he be trapped alone in an elevator that unexpectedly breaks down, he can use his PCA to engage the emergency telephone via a telecoil switch, alert the operator to switch to an ASCII-compatible TDD or computer modem, and communicate urgent information.

Imagine a blind poet reading a fax written in the graphic images of Chinese. She uses a tactile interface that enlarges each character on the screen of her PCA. She responds with a carefully crafted message of her own, each stroke designed with her personal touch, then shrunk to a more visually readable size.

Imagine you want to write a romantic letter to your beloved--but you're embarrassed about your spelling. You hand-write a note on your pen computer and have the computer check the spelling while keeping the graphic images of your writing. Any errors can be erased and rewritten by you. You could also have the computer check the grammar and style of your writing and produce the personal touch of your handwriting by printing or faxing out the result to your beloved's PCA.

Your uncle had a stroke that left his left hand paralyzed. He enjoys using computers and finds writing with his right hand easier than trying to type with one hand. The PCA he has is all the more pleasurable and gratifying because it incorporated design to accommodate the needs of people using one hand. The other functions of the PCA help him remember appointments and keep track of other data. Because the PCA is designed for and marketed to everybody, he doesn't feel it singles him out or highlights his disability in a negative way, so he has no self- consciousness about using the PCA in public.

Disabling Technology

Innovations like pen computing can be a godsend to some people and a threat to others. Such an invention was the telephone, which left deaf and speech-impaired people at a distinct disadvantage for years even as it expanded horizons for blind and mobility-impaired people. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and pen computing are by themselves inaccessible to blind people unless alternative methods of interfacing with the computer are incorporated into the software or hardware. Just as the expanding use of Windows and other GUIs initially posed difficulties for blind computer users, so can pen computing and other innovations be designed in a way which may have unintended negative effects on people with forgotten needs and abilities. Manufacturers would do well to incorporate "universal design" into their products--to make their products easily usable by people with any kind of disability or impairment.

Invisible, Temporary and Undiagnosed Disabilities

The marketplace tends to assume that people are "normal" unless there is some clear indication to the contrary. We act as if other people process information pretty much the way we do, that they see, hear, reason, talk and move the way "everybody else" does. There's a norm that we tend to think most people fit, and products and services are designed with this norm in mind.

Many people have some kind of significant difference, though. A substantial number of people are illiterate in this country, although some of these may be literate in another language. Approximately ten percent of the population have partial or total hearing loss. Fifteen to twenty-five percent of the general population are estimated to have learning disabilities, although most of these have not been diagnosed. Lots of people have had some neurological damage from head trauma. These differences could make these people particularly enthusiastic consumers of technology in order to compensate for weak areas and to enhance areas of strength (such as visual imagery). Ironically, however, the same differences in people which would make them especially receptive to technology can prevent them from using it if the marketplace invests in products they can't use.

Expense

How expensive would it be to incorporate universal design? What is universal design? Quite simply, it's the concept of designing a product so that virtually anybody can use it regardless of his or her disability. It's usually much more expensive to retrofit something to make it usable for everybody than it is to design accessibility into products, buildings or services from the beginning.
Case in point: All new TVs 13 inches or larger have been required by federal law to have closed captioning as a feature since July of 1993. (Closed captioning refers to subtitles which are not visible until the technology is enabled). Previously, deaf people who wanted to be able to understand dialogue on captioned TV programs or videotapes had to buy a separate device costing as much as $200. Captioning was made available through the invention of a chip, and mass production of this chip made the cost per unit much more affordable. People with learning disabilities or cognitive disabilities, and non-native speakers of English will hone their English skills in a pleasurable way due to the availability of captioning even though they might not have been likely to go out of their way to buy a decoder.

Consider the cost of making products which are not usable by people with differences. Manufacturers lose by having a smaller share of the market than they could have. Individuals lose by not being able to use products which could enhance their productivity or quality of life, and the economy suffers likewise. People with unknown disabilities give up on using products they find difficult to operate. The level of frustration is higher than it has to be.

Strengths

Einstein is thought to have had a learning disability. Conversely, his visual imagery was exceptionally strong and is thought to have been the source of his genius. His inspiration for his E=mc2 theory came from a visual image. Perhaps the inability to develop one area allows another area to be more fully optimized.

Pen Computing and other technologies could stimulate and enable untold numbers of people to meet their potential in unanticipated ways. Some individuals could flourish through being able to fax spontaneous drawings, by utilizing their strengths instead of being restricted by language. Blind people might wish to be able to draw an idea instead of being restricted to words. The absence of a sense does not necessarily equate to the loss of the appreciation for the sense--Beethoven, who developed a profound hearing loss later in life, is an excellent example of such a person who continued to generate beauty despite his inability to perceive it.

Adaptability

Have you ever known somebody that suffered a temporary hearing loss, a broken leg or arm? Unfortunately, chances are that you might encounter some period of incapacity yourself in the future, and that you'd want your devices to adjust to your needs. Have there been times when you wished there was an alternative to the high beeping sound of your PCA? (Most hearing loss is in the high frequencies, so the high frequency sounds typical of many alarms are in exactly the wrong frequency range to alert the majority of people.) Wouldn't it be nice if you could turn on a visual alert or vibration option?

You never know when you'll run into somebody who could benefit from some kind of adaptation. Let's say you're at work when you receive a TDD phone call from Marlee Matlin, the famous Academy-Award winning deaf actress. If your PCA had TDD-compatibility built into the modem, you could communicate directly with her. Instead, you can't communicate with her even if you have a regular modem (since it's not Baudot-compatible) and she has to call back through a third party system. She's less than favorably impressed with having to communicate via the slow process of a relay system and she gives her business to somebody else who's more proactive about disability issues.

Practical Suggestions

Many product developers have engineers assigned to address disability issues. The ideas of these employees usually are not integrated into the designing stage. More effort should be made to incorporate ideas from people knowledgeable about disabilities and cognitive processes.

Employers making purchasing decisions should favor devices that are immediately usable by or can be easily adapted for people with disabilities, language differences, or particular strengths. A computer or device that restricts input or output to one sense or method of interaction will limit the usefulness of the human resources available within the organization. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to accommodate only the known disabilities of employees, it can make economic sense to pay a bit more for technology that is flexible than for a cheap system with little adaptability. Keep in mind that many people may not know they have a disability, may feel badly about having an impairment, or may be afraid of disclosing their disability for fear of discrimination. The easier it is for employees to adapt equipment to enhance their productivity, the more everybody benefits.

Individuals might think about how they can support efforts to make products accessible. People involved with purchasing decisions can consider whether the vendors are addressing accessibility issues. For example, at least one voice-mail company has incorporated TDD messaging into its products. Others involved with designing services or products can look for feasible ways of improving accessibility. (It's all too easy to think of expensive ways of providing access and to thus discourage the organization for pursuing access.) Managers can encourage their subordinates to generate ideas for improving access. Marketing people should advertise genuine efforts to improve products and services for people with differing needs.

Conclusion

Technology can be developed in a way to drive the have-nots further apart from the haves. Thoughtless use of it can cause and has caused unintended harm or frustration. Automated voice-mail systems, for example, are often inaccessible to deaf people even if they are using a relay system, because the voice-mail system disconnects too early, yet no other mechanism may be available for the deaf consumer to communicate to the organization. Using only one particular technology exclusively and extensively, such as pen computing or voice recognition, would be likely to produce negative consequences for a forgotten group of people.

If used in conjunction with other kinds of technology, however, pen computing and associated technologies undoubtedly have much to offer a substantial number of people. We could see many exciting uses of visual, non-verbal communication and be enriched by more people being able to express themselves in their best medium. Let us hope that we will work together to have technology expand the lives of all, not just a few.

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