Design for All: Legislation, Markets & Implementation
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Speech given at European Day of Disabled People 2001 Round Table
Date: 03/12/2001
Venue: Brussels
Article
Posing a dichotomy between legislation and market solutions to good design is a good starting point for a debate but, of course, we ideally need both.
The logic of inclusive design from the business point of view is that it increases market share and, if instituted from the starting point of a project, it costs little or nothing. Legislators, on the other hand, are always under a mass of competing pressures; there is an almost limited field but very limited capacity inside systems to generate law and regulation. The legislator, then, does not wish to go round looking for fires but only to put them out when they blaze dangerously. In this context disabled people are remarkably unthreatening. Inclusion may well be socially desirable and it may be politically unwise to denounce it; but, as we have seen since People First, there is no inclination within the European Union (EU) to legislate for inclusion in the Information Age. This failure has to be seen against the background of general de-regulation in such areas as the design of telephones and other hardware which in turn makes life for disabled people ever more difficult; so, to quote a simple example, hi-fi systems are now less accessible to visually impaired people than they were ten years ago.
What is required is a basic, universal standard of service laid down by the EU and Member States to ensure guaranteed access to information from major suppliers such as the public sector, banking and financial services, broadcasters and major retailers. To try to legislate a standard across the board that includes SMEs is unrealistic; but, put this way round, there is a general principle which allows of exceptions. This would generate a great increase in access to information which would, in turn, reduce dependence by people on the benefits system and this, in turn, would mean more resources for those who have to be supplied by niche markets, either because they are heavily dependent on some kind of SME or because the disability is so severe that it requires peripheral hardware and software to be attached to generic systems or even a high degree of human mediation. A good example of what I am saying is the very high cost to Governments of paying for special text magnification software or CC-TVs when the same results could be achieved by changes in basic information design and manipulation tools.
It is also important to recognise that effective information delivery requires a holistic approach to the system; the author may make content optimally accessible and integrate all the correct manipulation tools but if these entwined strands can't be carried by the system or de-coded by the receiver the author's good work will not be rewarded.
The problem we face is that the digital industries have become so accustomed to the regular upgrading of their minority markets that they do not understand that what we are really discussing is access to what amount to consumer electronics where market penetration is not 40% as with PCs but nearer 100% with televisions and telephones.
So the key questions we need to focus on are these:
- First, do we really mean universal accessibility provided by the commercial sector or optimal accessibility which leaves niches to be filled by public sector provision? In other words, do we mean “Design for all" or inclusive design?
- Given the demographics of ICT exclusion which affects approximately half of the population, do we really want legislation which specifies disabled people or do we want a general right to information underpinned by a basic universal standard of service?
- Again, picking up on the above two points, how sensible is it for the disability community to emphasise what differentiates it from the rest of society rather than emphasising where its needs coincide with those of others such as in the case of eyes free and hands free equipment being required both by disabled people and car drivers?
- Fourthly, is it any longer sensible to make distinctions between hardware and software in terms of defining accessibility?
- Finally, are industry and Governments serious about this or are they simply paying lip service?
If we can frame even tentative replies to these questions we will have done very well.
KEVIN CAREY
Director, humanITy
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