Jane Snowdon is chief innovation officer in IBM’s U. S. federal government division.
Noticeable strides have been made since President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law 25 years ago. That was clear as his daughter, Dorothy Bush Koch, spoke on his behalf in March at the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) 2015 Leadership Awards Gala to commemorate the law’s 25th anniversary.
However, as Ms. Koch accurately explained, much is left to be done to make life easier for those living with disabilities. According to the Office of Disability Employment Policy, an estimated 20 percent of working-age people have some kind of disability. Therefore, the private and public sectors must continue to work together to solve this issue, particularly in the areas of digital information and mobile apps.
Countless examples exist of public-private collaboration resulting in accessibility innovations, which provide equal access to digital knowledge to enable people to lead more active and productive lives.
- The U. S. Transportation Research Board is funding a set of partners to identify best practices and techniques for navigating airports.
- The Department of Education is developing cloud-based infrastructure to manage user preferences for standardized online Education Accessibility Assessments.
- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has helped 28,000 returning veterans and spouses find meaningful employment using the award-winning Service Oriented Architecture Research and Development (SOARD), an asset management application, and the Military Spouse Corporate Career Network (MSCCN).
- The USAA, a financial services provider for the military community, is the first to commercialize the use of the accessible Watson Engagement Advisor as a consumer-facing application.
But more can be done given recently updated accessibility guidelines. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act has been updated to give guidance on accessibility requirements for new and advancing technologies: it expanded the definition of accessibility to be more holistic. It now focuses more on the design and delivery of human-centric solutions that personalize the user experience on any device, creating parity for individual human needs so everyone has equal access to digital knowledge leading to more active and productive lives. Using this broad definition, each individual would have access to information based on their personal needs, regardless of ability.
Given these updated guidelines, health care is a particular area of need. A substantial number of people access health information through mobile devices, with remote monitoring and portable sensors, health text messaging, and both web- and mobile-enabled applications, such as fitness apps.
In fact, more than 60 percent of the world’s population uses a mobile device every day, whether it’s for shopping, catching up on news, checking email, listening to music, or simply texting and making calls. Mobile application usage grew 76 percent in 2014 according to Yahoo! Flurry Analytics and as of July 2014, 1.3 million mobile apps were available through Android and 1.2 million through Apple’s App Store.
However, studies show that only 21 percent of viewers have an optimized experience with traditional mobile application designs. As IBM’s Chief Accessibility Officer, Frances West, has said, “Mobile technology has sparked a new era of opportunity for people of all ages and abilities, yet many mobile apps have design flaws that prevent people with disabilities and the elderly from using them effectively.”
Usability and accessibility challenges such as small font size, low color contrast, or limitations to keyboard navigation can arise. To address these challenges, more tools are needed to perform automated accessibility assessments directly within mobile web and native Apple iOS and Google Android application development environments.
Continuing its heritage of advancing and championing technology access for people of all abilities with such innovations as the first Braille printer, talking typewriter and the first viable screen reader, IBM most recently introduced the Mobile Accessibility Checker to help developers identify and correct usability issues early in the development process.
This is just one example of the great strides companies and government have made in the right direction. But we need to continue our work on expanding accessibility to all who need it.
