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 NEWSUsers with disabilities push high-tech limits By Jennifer Jones September 1, 2000 1:01 pm PT LIFE HAS GOTTEN a little better for disabled Web users since the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) hurled a lawsuit at America Online. In an effort to persuade AOL to make its software friendlier to the sight-impaired, the NFB filed a suit that caused the company to develop a version of its software that is equipped for users with limited vision.
"Often, with one change to a Web site, you can knock out barriers to access for the blind," says Curtis Chong, the NFB's director of technology, who is himself a blind Web user. Although the NFB suit -- dropped in July -- was specifically about raising the awareness of blindness to software developers, the action has had a positive effect on computer users with a variety of disabilities. The NFB suit has effectively raised awareness about making technology user-friendly to disabled computer users across the technology community. Chong calls the result a "surprising by-product" of the AOL case. One major reason the AOL litigation garnered so much attention is that it coincided with another high-profile effort to coerce technology suppliers to be more aware of computer users with disabilities. The largest single buyer of IT equipment -- the U.S. federal government -- will soon require that contracting vendors offer user-friendly products for the disabled. At issue is Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1998, which the government is expected to finish rewriting soon. "Making technology accessible does not have to be expensive or burdensome," says U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, who is championing the government's effort to lead by example in the area of improving technology access to computer users with disabilities. Reno's remarks were made at a federal technology conference held in Washington last spring. The Rehabilitation Act rewrite will require federal agencies to make their technology efforts and resources -- both internally and externally -- more available to people with disabilities. Rare exceptions will be made in cases where accessibility is considered unduly burdensome or cost-prohibitive. Changes are being finalized through government directives due to come out soon. Details of the law and pending amendments are on the U.S. Department of Justice Web site at www.usdoj.gov. The new regulations will only affect products sold to the government. Furthermore, Reno was careful to point out last spring that the Clinton administration is not planning to implement accessibility regulations that would apply across the entire technology industry: "We are not regulating," she says. Instead, the revamped rules -- collectively referred to as Section 508 -- are intended to provide incentives that will compel the technology industry to embark voluntarily on more initiatives to make technology accessible to those with disabilities. Better yet, the federal government, Congress, and others would like to see vendors dovetail accessibility initiatives with mainstream product development. And that's what many active in the area of accessibility are expecting. "[The] private sector is clearly not covered by 508," says Judy Brewer, director of the Web accessibility initiative international program office of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), in Cambridge, Mass. "But market leaders of the leading authoring tools may begin realizing that they might as well make products accessible [to users with disabilities] so they won't miss out on the federal marketplace." Ultimately, Section 508 implications may reach beyond a simple vendor pause when companies consider the realities of losing out on federal business, Brewer continued. "There may be increased awareness in the private sector of the need to make information technology accessible [to users with disabilities] and the potential benefits that accessibility may have to other users," she says. In the blossoming age of wireless access and handheld devices, Brewer, the NFB's Chong, and others are urging IT companies to use the needs of the disabled as a springboard to leverage Internet opportunities. "In the wireless movement, displays for Web sites are going to have to be simplified," Chong says. "Why should I have to learn to type to have [Internet] access? Why should I have to be able to see?" Cause for improvement Disabled users could prove to be the cause of technology improvements that affect computer users across the board, argues Brewer. She used the analogy of "curb cuts" (cutouts in sidewalks put there so people in wheelchairs can navigate city streets). The disabled community worked for decades to have those sidewalk access points put in and they have become useful to a variety of people beyond those that are disabled. It isn't too hard to imagine a world filled with "electronic curb cuts," Brewer says, adding that she did not coin the phrase but simply uses the term, along with many advocates of the disabled community. "When you make a Web site accessible to disabled users, you also make it accessible on mobile phones or in a busy operating room where a doctor is using a voice-activated device," Brewer says. One example demonstrating the spillover benefit of accessible technology is in the area of corporate call centers. Some large businesses, including Lands' End and L.L. Bean, have tweaked the technology used to handle inbound calls after learning a lesson or two from the deaf community, says Mark Seeger, customer relations manager at Sprint. Kansas City, Mo.-based Sprint runs the relay system which state governments offer as a service to their deaf and hard-of-hearing populations. Because a deaf user must rely on a relay operator to listen and key in options offered on a call center IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system, many deaf customers were being cut off before they had time to respond. Many corporate officials operating major call centers were receptive to ideas about extending more time to make selections, in large part because they do not want to lose the business of the deaf community, Seeger says. "The banking industry, which has high visibility to customers, is also aware of this market. And [banks] want to attract this market," Seeger says. The disabled community is estimated to be about 8 percent of the U.S. population, a figure that includes people with physical and hand-eye coordination limitations and other issues such as dyslexia or higher levels of mental distractibility, the W3C's Brewer says. "How many marketing sessions among major Web content producers can you imagine sitting in where people are saying, 'We're doing fine. We don't care if we give away that 8 percent,' " Brewer says.  RELATED SUBJECTS  E-CommerceSoftware DevelopmentSPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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