A whole new world with accessible technology

Sudipta Dev / Mumbai

A World Health Organisation report states that between 750 million and one billion of the six billion human beings living on this earth are disabled. According to the US Census Bureau, one in five Americans has some kind of disability. Assistive or Accessible Technology (AT) can bring about a great change in the lives of the disabled by helping them participate fully in every aspect of life. Barrier-free information technology has opened new opportunities both in the field of education and in the workforce to the disabled. “Accessible technology enables individuals to adjust their computers to meet their visual, hearing, dexterity, cognitive and speech needs. It includes both accessibility options built into products as well as specialty hardware and software products (assistive technology products) that help individuals interact with a computer,” states a recent study conducted by Forrester Research that was commissioned by Microsoft.

In the US, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act makes it mandatory to make information technology accessible to all. Under Section 508, Federal agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others. This applies to various types of technologies, including: software applications and operating systems; Web-based information or applications; telecommunication products; video and multimedia products; self-contained, closed products (e.g., information kiosks, calculators, and fax machines); desktop and portable computers.

The Indian context

Accessible technology remains a little known concept in India, albeit Indian IT organisations catering to clients in the US and UK are increasingly getting projects (particularly from government clients) that have to comply with AT norms. For Indian IT professionals this means learning how to create software and Web sites that are accessible to everyone. For the first time in the country, a two-day workshop was held recently in Mumbai on designing accessible software and sites. Organised by Net Systems Solutions, the workshop was aimed at software developers and architects, instructional designers, Web designers, user interface designers, flash developers, project managers, quality managers and testers. “Interestingly, the first person to sign-up for the workshop was a sightless IT professional,” says Shilpi K Kedia, CEO of Net Systems Solutions. Vishnu Ramchandani, who works as a Web tester with Mphasis adds, “I attended the workshop to know more about testing and Web accessibility guidelines. I have got more information about Section 508. Now, I can give more support to my company about designing. I can pursue the field myself; it will be useful for me in the future.”

Emphasising on the lack of awareness about assistive technology in India, Kedia states, “On one side we are saying that the disabled people are unproductive, while on the other we are making them non-productive by limiting their access.” Originally a technical writing firm, Net Systems Solutions offers training and testing facilities for accessible technology. Kedia herself has been trained in the US on accessibility. She has many years of experience training and working with visually disabled people. The company uses a small team of blind testers offering services to corporates, and plans to include people with varied disabilities on the team soon.

Accessibility training and testing

The training offered by Net Systems Solutions customised courses specific to the products and services catered to by the client organisation. The testing facilities include: Creating a test plan; evaluating products using assistive technologies; checklist for Section 508, etc. The company also provides support to the designing and development team to implement Section 508.

Creating accessibility

“We have been making efforts to make people aware of accessibility. Assistive technology is also called creating universal accessibility,” informs Kedia. Her focus is on training IT professionals who are keen to create this alternate environment.

Rahul Mahurkar, a lead software designer with Tata Interactive points out that business requirements in e-learning have resulted in many of his colleagues attending the workshop. “Accessible technology is now a mandatory requirement of all government projects coming from the US and UK. We are mostly doing government projects. In the last one year most projects that we did had to comply with accessibility norms. Currently we are doing it for the sake of compliance, but we want to go deep into accessibility.” His colleague Barun Yadav informs that they had earlier attended a workshop on accessibility conducted in their office by an expert flown in from the UK. “Being in e-learning we feel a moral responsibility to do work that can be accessed by all,” adds Yadav.

Similar views are voiced by Dr Swetaleena, an instructional designer with Tata Interactive, “It is a matter of ideology. We should be empathetic towards all students who find learning difficult because of some disability. Also, in the commercial sense we are getting more work from government areas, and consequently need to learn about accessible technology.” For an instructional designer the style of writing, image descriptions, etc, needs to vary to make the educational material accessible.

“Accessible technology is a basic prerequisite; we have been using it as one small part of usability. However we have never done testing or ensured that all the norms are met with. Now we want to gain expertise because we have been getting a number of enquiries lately,” says Kavita Doshy, senior visualiser—creative practice, Blue Star Infotech. Another visualiser, Kirti Bhushan, working with Cognizant, came all the way from Chennai to acquaint himself with the subject. Though he is yet to work on projects complying with accessibility norms, he wants to be ready for the future.

A key member of the team that conducted the workshop is Preeti Rohra. An accessibility consultant with Net Systems Solutions she has done a honours diploma in systems analysis and programming. Rohra is visually disabled but loves the challenges of her job. Deftly accessing different Web sites with the help of the ‘Jaws for Windows’ screen reader, she says, “Most visually challenged people are given the job of telephone operators by the government. I have never wanted to do that. We are not unproductive, we should be given the chance to do what we are interested in.” Her vision is to help sighted people get trained on accessibility.

Accessibility online

A blind person may use a Web browser that reads content on a Web page aloud. Image maps, frames, Java scripts and other Web design elements that have not been properly configured for them may confuse the software. ‘Jaws for Windows’ is a popular tool for the visually disabled. A deaf person requires a text version of audio information that is available on a Web site to be able to use the site as designed. Some people cannot perceive certain colours correctly, and may not be able to see light-coloured type on coloured backgrounds. Someone with limited hand movement may not be able to hold down more than one key on their keyboard at once. Well-designed Web menus provide alternative navigation methods. Source: www.techsoup.org

sudipta@expresscomputeronline.com