From Golden Age to Twilight Zone
Speech given at Blue Skies Event in association with Microsoft ‘Transforming Lives: The Future of Accessible Technologies in Breaking Down Employment Barriers’
Date: 26/06/2007
Venue: The Aldersgate Room, Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London, UK
Article
Unusually for blind people, the technological breakthrough of office computing led to an early but very brief golden age. In the 1980s when bespoke programming was necessary, the words ‘blind’ and ‘computer programmer’ went together; but, of course, it did not last. And although the absolute amount of information available to blind and visually impaired people (VIPs) has grown enormously through computing and the internet, I think we need to contrast that absolute benefit with a much gloomier comparative analysis. So when we say that VIPs are better off than they were we have to be careful that we do not confuse their individual lifestyle gains with their economic competitiveness.
With particular respect to VIPs, the barriers to an average level of competence are very high:
- First, there is a general prejudice - a conclusion not based on evidence - that VIP's are difficult to employ and cannot use computers
- Secondly, the access technology industry is small and fragile and its products are comparatively expensive
- Thirdly, access technologies like JAWS are so difficult to use that only the very brightest people can handle them. VIPs are presented with a competence challenge much greater than their peers adding to their already severe impairment deficit
- Fourthly, the VIP sector has generally thought of IT simply as web accessibility and word processing, i.e. as the exercise of consuming and processing
- Fifthly, ever since the GUI and the end of the brief 'golden age' for VIPs, digital information systems are becoming ever more graphical and ever less textual; globalisation will grow on pictures and English as a second language.
- Sixthly, There has been belated interest in broadcasting and telecommunications and
- Finally, The sector has shown little interest in creativity
On this last point it is important to recognise that there is a direct parallel with the industrial age; people who simply consume and process are always at the bottom of the economic pile; it is the creators who thrive. At the moment, with increased automation, people are being given basic IT skills which will guarantee that they can never compete in the globalising labour market.
Perhaps this is the right place to say a word about what is usually referred to as the 'business case' for accessibility. This is the model which has so far encouraged the public sector to leave the problem to the private sector. There is only a strong case for accessibility, over and above what can be optimally included in the initial design, where there is an excess of investment capital; where there is a competition for capital, the opportunity cost of accessibility is almost always lower than that for other population segments.
These very specific VIP factors have to be put alongside some general characteristics of the early 21st Century digital environment:
- First, the 'digital' divide is moving from economic to educational; Tony Blair could not have been more right when he emphasised the centrality of education; it is what you do with the kit that counts
- Secondly, some technologies, particularly those round employment, are creating a skills ratchet; you only have to look at travel booking and online banking
- Thirdly, conversely, some technologies, like the mobile phone, are simplifying transactions
- Fourthly, some employment and many non employment IT activities are becoming peer normative so that to be excluded exacerbates an existing socio-economic problem
I wanted to start with this rather gloomy analysis because my first conclusion is that one of the reasons why we have failed so far is because of wishful thinking. We need to be much more realistic about our sector in the following major areas:
- The problems the access technology industries have in determining how to collaborate and compete
- The shortcomings of Microsoft's policy of derogation to developers
- The charity sector's failure to get to grips with the real digital environment.
So, after a general conclusion that we need to be more realistic, here are some specific, short term recommendations:
- First, we need to be much smarter at matching VIPs to job sectors where they can acquire appropriate peer normative skills which will enable them to be competitive; we need to focus on those aspects of technology which simplify transactions, such as the use of a mobile phone to complete a deal in contrast with the reams of secretary-generated papers that were needed a generation ago; another option is putting VIPs into audio generation
- Secondly, major software suppliers, the access technology sector and charities need a structured dialogue; what we currently have is a costly mess, predominantly funded by the public sector which needs to exert its leverage
- Thirdly, the IT sector needs to keep the accessibility promises it has made; we don't need repeated feasibility studies and research; we need some action on relatively simple measures such as web accessibility, the preservation of accessibility features in upgrades and movement on user interface usability
- Fourthly, there is more to IT than the PC/Apple oligopoly; we need to think about broadcasting and telephones more constructively; and we need to take advantage both of 'blended' applications and user interface modularity.
All this leads to three major medium term recommendations:
- First, we need a generic right of access to information in the public domain, based on the broadcasting model; this may be contestable with other information requirements but the current situation where the charity sector fights for accessibility medium by medium, is absurd
- Secondly, public sector and public sector-funded organisations should include:
-
- Accessibility in the user requirement which generates
- a technical specification and then
- a procurement process.
At the moment almost all accessibility is retro engineered at cost to the supplier and consumer.
- Thirdly, we need to address the three related issues of:
-
- The skills ratchet
- The increased use of images
- Creativity and Web 2.0.
Finally, there are some long term aims that we need to buy into pretty rapidly:
- First, as the need for IT training is a direct cost shift from suppliers to consumers, user requirements for IT systems should specify that their use should require no training
- Secondly, accessibility should be understood in a much more rounded way than observing rules and it should result in digital material being created multi modally
- Thirdly, there is an overwhelming need for individual and small group tuition to replace classroom teaching and, consequently
- Fourthly, individualised teaching to replace the National Curriculum.
Returning finally to where I began. I think that all that we can do - and therefore must do - is to keep the digital divide for VIPs as narrow and manageable as possible. In spite of some success since Windows 3.x and the arrival of the World Wide Web, the general picture has been one of narrow interest, poor co-ordination and a tendency to locate the blame elsewhere. If we do not want VIPs to be confined to an economic and social twilight zone we will have to do better.
Unusually for blind people, the technological breakthrough of office computing led to an early but very brief golden age. In the 1980s when bespoke programming was necessary, the words ‘blind’ and ‘computer programmer’ went together; but, of course, it did not last. And although the absolute amount of information available to blind and visually impaired people (VIPs) has grown enormously through computing and the internet, I think we need to contrast that absolute benefit with a much gloomier comparative analysis. So when we say that VIPs are better off than they were we have to be careful that we do not confuse their individual lifestyle gains with their economic competitiveness.
With particular respect to VIPs, the barriers to an average level of competence are very high:
- First, there is a general prejudice - a conclusion not based on evidence - that VIP's are difficult to employ and cannot use computers
- Secondly, the access technology industry is small and fragile and its products are comparatively expensive
- Thirdly, access technologies like JAWS are so difficult to use that only the very brightest people can handle them. VIPs are presented with a competence challenge much greater than their peers adding to their already severe impairment deficit
- Fourthly, the VIP sector has generally thought of IT simply as web accessibility and word processing, i.e. as the exercise of consuming and processing
- Fifthly, ever since the GUI and the end of the brief 'golden age' for VIPs, digital information systems are becoming ever more graphical and ever less textual; globalisation will grow on pictures and English as a second language.
- Sixthly, There has been belated interest in broadcasting and telecommunications and
- Finally, The sector has shown little interest in creativity
On this last point it is important to recognise that there is a direct parallel with the industrial age; people who simply consume and process are always at the bottom of the economic pile; it is the creators who thrive. At the moment, with increased automation, people are being given basic IT skills which will guarantee that they can never compete in the globalising labour market.
Perhaps this is the right place to say a word about what is usually referred to as the 'business case' for accessibility. This is the model which has so far encouraged the public sector to leave the problem to the private sector. There is only a strong case for accessibility, over and above what can be optimally included in the initial design, where there is an excess of investment capital; where there is a competition for capital, the opportunity cost of accessibility is almost always lower than that for other population segments.
These very specific VIP factors have to be put alongside some general characteristics of the early 21st Century digital environment:
- First, the 'digital' divide is moving from economic to educational; Tony Blair could not have been more right when he emphasised the centrality of education; it is what you do with the kit that counts
- Secondly, some technologies, particularly those round employment, are creating a skills ratchet; you only have to look at travel booking and online banking
- Thirdly, conversely, some technologies, like the mobile phone, are simplifying transactions
- Fourthly, some employment and many non employment IT activities are becoming peer normative so that to be excluded exacerbates an existing socio-economic problem
I wanted to start with this rather gloomy analysis because my first conclusion is that one of the reasons why we have failed so far is because of wishful thinking. We need to be much more realistic about our sector in the following major areas:
- The problems the access technology industries have in determining how to collaborate and compete
- The shortcomings of Microsoft's policy of derogation to developers
- The charity sector's failure to get to grips with the real digital environment.
So, after a general conclusion that we need to be more realistic, here are some specific, short term recommendations:
- First, we need to be much smarter at matching VIPs to job sectors where they can acquire appropriate peer normative skills which will enable them to be competitive; we need to focus on those aspects of technology which simplify transactions, such as the use of a mobile phone to complete a deal in contrast with the reams of secretary-generated papers that were needed a generation ago; another option is putting VIPs into audio generation
- Secondly, major software suppliers, the access technology sector and charities need a structured dialogue; what we currently have is a costly mess, predominantly funded by the public sector which needs to exert its leverage
- Thirdly, the IT sector needs to keep the accessibility promises it has made; we don't need repeated feasibility studies and research; we need some action on relatively simple measures such as web accessibility, the preservation of accessibility features in upgrades and movement on user interface usability
- Fourthly, there is more to IT than the PC/Apple oligopoly; we need to think about broadcasting and telephones more constructively; and we need to take advantage both of 'blended' applications and user interface modularity.
All this leads to three major medium term recommendations:
- First, we need a generic right of access to information in the public domain, based on the broadcasting model; this may be contestable with other information requirements but the current situation where the charity sector fights for accessibility medium by medium, is absurd
- Secondly, public sector and public sector-funded organisations should include:
- Accessibility in the user requirement which generates
- a technical specification and then
- a procurement process.
At the moment almost all accessibility is retro engineered at cost to the supplier and consumer.
- Thirdly, we need to address the three related issues of:
- The skills ratchet
- The increased use of images
- Creativity and Web 2.0.
Finally, there are some long term aims that we need to buy into pretty rapidly:
- First, as the need for IT training is a direct cost shift from suppliers to consumers, user requirements for IT systems should specify that their use should require no training
- Secondly, accessibility should be understood in a much more rounded way than observing rules and it should result in digital material being created multi modally
- Thirdly, there is an overwhelming need for individual and small group tuition to replace classroom teaching and, consequently
- Fourthly, individualised teaching to replace the National Curriculum.
Returning finally to where I began. I think that all that we can do - and therefore must do - is to keep the digital divide for VIPs as narrow and manageable as possible. In spite of some success since Windows 3.x and the arrival of the World Wide Web, the general picture has been one of narrow interest, poor co-ordination and a tendency to locate the blame elsewhere. If we do not want VIPs to be confined to an economic and social twilight zone we will have to do better.