Improving Accessibility through Technology
Thirty million Americans have some type of cognitive disability. These individuals may experience difficulty in understanding or processing information, solving problems, or responding to stimuli. This includes individuals with intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, brain injuries, and learning disabilities.
More than two decades after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we are at an historic juncture in addressing the needs of this population. Today, digital technology offers us the greatest opportunity in history to use technology to attack challenges that have affected individuals since the beginning of time. It is our responsibility to do everything possible to seize this opportunity.
Opportunities with Tech
This week, I attended a conference hosted by the Coleman Institute focused entirely on these issues. Meeting with these experts and advocates has me more optimistic than ever about the potential for technology to improve the lives of Americans with cognitive disabilities.
A major cause for optimism is the dramatically expanded access to life-altering technology.
For years, the only way to obtain access was to turn to assistive technologies — often expensive, hard to find, and frequently not as effective as the real thing. And because these were substitutes for what everyone else was using, they could be stigmatizing. A child having to use a device that was different than the one his friend had wondered why he couldn’t also have the latest and greatest innovations.
All this is changing. Today, everyone can have in their pocket or purse a computer equivalent in power to a supercomputer that used to be locked away in special rooms. Coupled with today’s ubiquitous wireless network, that computer can tap into resources from virtually anywhere. These advances are making it easier to incorporate accessibility features into off-the-shelf products than ever before. Among other things, the ability to customize devices now empowers consumers with disabilities to set their own devices to meet their very specific and individual functional needs. And burgeoning software technologies and innovative apps targeted to people with disabilities are developing at lightning speeds.
Access to the wonders of technology must be a forethought, not an afterthought. Accessibility is finally being baked into the development of mainstream consumer electronics and services.
Best Practices for Accessibility
This week, the Federal Communications Commission is releasing a couple of important items that will advance our efforts to improve accessibility.
Over the past year, our Disability Advisory Committee has been working with key stakeholders to develop a set of just-released best practices for ensuring access and usability of products and services. These recommendations include a blueprint for greater collaboration between industry and people with cognitive disabilities, in addition to tips about accessible instructions, user guides and customer support services.
As important as the content of these best practices is the industry participation. Through the process of developing the best practices, the companies and their trade associations involved have made vital commitments to address the needs of people with cognitive disabilities as they design and roll out new communications technologies. It is the first time that this industry sector has made public its recognition of the needs of this population.
The FCC’s Disability Rights Office has also taken an in-depth look at communications technologies available for people with cognitive disabilities, and, this week, it released a new White Paper explaining the accessibility barriers and delineating the steps we can take to ensure that our policies eliminate them. This White Paper reveals that lack of accessibility, economic barriers, and — importantly — a lack of targeted outreach are the primary barriers to adoption of the available communications technologies. It also contains an extensive rundown of available communications tools that can help people live more independently.
We can’t just rely on technology to improve the lives of people with cognitive disabilities. We need jobs. I am proud that the FCC has built a prototypical program for the employment of people with intellectual disabilities in federal agencies. The involvement of individuals with I/DD has helped everyone at the FCC. Work is getting done — and well. Training is ongoing. Promotions are occurring. And new relationships and sensitivities have developed. The FCC’s Deputy Managing Director, Mindy Ginsberg, brought the program to life at the FCC, and has been working with other federal agencies to encourage them to do the same.
This is Our Time
As technology continues to improve and change rapidly, it must improve for all. That means today’s innovations — like artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, the Internet of Things, and automated speech recognition technologies — must involve accessibility from the start. As we move forward, we need to make sure that new barriers are not created through complex display menus and user guides, complicated security and navigation features, and software upgrades that may be well-intentioned, but which often create obstacles for individuals with disabilities. We cannot risk creating even greater obstacles to access for people with limited processing, attention, and learning capabilities.
This is our time to make a difference. Never have the stars aligned as they have now to address the challenges of individuals with cognitive disabilities. The march of technology has created opportunities that weren’t even imaginable a short time ago, and the technology industry has seized the moment. The Federal Communications Commission is dedicated to the core American principles of equality and opportunity for all.
