The Case for Server Side Digital Information Applications with particular reference to ‘Voice Out’

Server Side Accessibility

5.0 Introduction

There is a special inclusion case for server side services for 'socially excluded' people but the case becomes stronger with disability in general and blindness and visual impairment in particular. Indeed, a useful rule of thumb would be that the more excluded a market segment the more it needs server side solutions.

The case of blind and visually impaired people is particularly severe. Repeated research findings show (as in the Forrester Research 2003 [1] and DRC Investigation 2004 [2]) that blind people suffer the greatest difficulties in task completion on the internet.

The cost and complexity of access technology for blind people is also a serious factor.

5.1 Mission Statements

In considering the accessibility of digital information it is important to start with the mission statement of the supplier.

All of the following proclaim that they provide a service for all citizens:

The European Union
Central and Local Government in EU Member States
Licensed broadcasters (cf their web sites)
Licensed public utilities
Licensed banks and financial services
Licensed telecommunications companies.

The word ‘licensed’ is important in this context because accessibility can and sometimes is stipulated as part of the conditions of license but more often the license is granted on a broader ground of undiscriminatory access.

Organisations with narrower remits may justifiably argue that their accessibility obligations are proportionately lower and privately produced web site owners may argue that they are using the Web for private purposes and that public access is incidental.

In general it can reasonably be argued that the degree of accessibility required of a supplier bears some relationship to its public mission statement and its size and, by implication, its profit level.

5.2 Reasonable Adjustment

The ideas in 5.12 are summed up in the United Kingdom in the concept of 'Reasonable Adjustment". The obligation on an organisation to make its public domain information accessible depends upon:

Mission (see 5.1 above)
Size
Cost/benefit.
Size. The size of an organisation and its information offering will affect the degree of accessibility it can reasonably be expected to offer. Major retail outlets, for example, will be required to provide a higher level of accessibility than small family outlets.
Cost/Benefit. The way in which cost/benefit is calculated can be complex but there are some specific comments which affect it in the field of accessibility:
- First, most accessibility in digital information systems is retro engineered by suppliers which greatly increases its cost; if it were included in initial design the cost would be much lower
- Secondly, the bulk of the accessibility cost is actually met by the consumer (see 5.3 below)
- Thirdly, The likely uptake is an important factor: a site devoted to the paintings of a school of artists might reasonably argue that not many totally blind people are gong to want to access it and that to enable them to do so via detailed descriptions of pictures would be prohibitively onerous
- Fourthly, It might be considered reasonable for a public sector service to be accessible via synthetic speech but not via a braille display at every public terminal.

Two quite separate but related factors are:

The argument of artistic integrity against user data manipulation. This stipulation, however, should not apply to any material in the categories of service defined in 5.1.
Accessibility as a limitation of freedom of speech. This argument is usually cited by designers who wish to use all the effects at their disposal. This argument is valid but it must be ranked lower than accessibility on the sites of the kinds of services listed in 5.1

5.3 'Accessibility taxes'

As has been noted in 5.2 much of the cost of accessibility does not fall on the supplier but on the consumer. When this situation occurs in accessing public sector information it may properly be regarded as an 'accessibility tax'.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the public sector only pays for accessibility hardware and software for:

Children in formal education
Adults on the Access to Work programme.

Students are covered by a general grant which they may put towards accessibility equipment.

Thus, the majority of blind people in the UK - those not in work and those too old or disabled to work - have no entitlement to the hardware and software which will enable them to access the kind of services listed in 5.1.

5.4 Hardware Disaggregation

There is a trend in hardware towards disaggregation:

Computers are separated into input (keyboard, mouse), processor and output devices (speakers, screen)
Televisions are split between controllers, processors and output (screen, speakers)
Hi-fi and other consumer electronics systems are split between controllers and processors and outputs
Even mobile phones are split between processors and ear pieces.

This trend will lead to converged input and output devices capable of interacting with a variety of processors as part of the "Green Dividend" (see 4.8 above).

This general simplification might work in two different ways in respect of access to client side synthetic speech. It will be worth supplying synthetic speech capacity where one user interface set-up can access a wide variety of processors; but, conversely, as user interfaces simplify, reacting to increased server side functionality, client side synthetic speech capacity might become even more disproportionately costly.

Disaggregation will radically improve access to visual material by people with low vision because they will be able to use a screen of choice for a variety of processors.

5.5 The 'Broadcast-like experience'

The move to server side applications will bring the internet and broadcasting experiences closer together so that using the internet should produce a 'broadcast-like' experience.

However, for disabled people the additional accessibility features to access broadcasting (sub-titling, signing and audio description) have always been the responsibility of the broadcaster.

In summary, the 'broadcast like experience' is one in which:

The supplier takes responsibility for faults
The consumer is in control of their process of navigating and selecting
The system can withstand and correct itself from inaccurate prompts.

If that is true for the public at large then it would be unreasonable for disabled people to be excluded by the necessity of using additional devices to achieve access.

5.6 Geometric Complexity

Adding a layer of functionality in a PC/Apple client side system produces a geometric multiplier of complexity and a geometric reduction in the mean time between faults. There are notorious compatibility problems between standard systems and access technologies which makes difficult environments even more difficult.

There are particularly severe problems for blind people using screen reader technology to navigate complex web pages, frequently being lost in boxes or trapped in loops from which they cannot escape. The tab function is difficult because it is not directional in the way in which the arrow keys are directional.

5.7 Multi Modality

The three basic principles of accessible information design are:

Multi modality
Platform neutrality
Customisation/simplification.

The first of these means that data should be designed in such a way that it can be accessed as audio, pictures and text simultaneously or discretely. Enjoying the benefits of this requirement should not depend upon specialist access technology.

5.8 The Special Case of Server Side Audio

The following is largely a summary from other Chapters.

The case for server side audio is as follows:

Market segments:
- Blind and seriously visually impaired people
- People for whom the language on display is not their first language
- Drivers of vehicles.
- People with learning and cognitive difficulties and or dyslexia.

Fiscal/Legal
- There is an implied citizen right to access to information
- Client side screen readers are only owned by a tiny minority of blind people (see 5.9)
- For the kinds of organisations in 5.1 server side audio is a reasonable adjustment

Economic
- Server side audio is much cheaper and easier to use than screen reader technology and it will cut down the need for PC/Apple systems
- It will increase the uptake of on-line services, reducing the need for human resources and reducing double payment for delivering services.

Moral
- When an activity becomes socially normative people attain at least a moral right to enjoy it or participate in it. Client side screen reader technology is a considerable barrier to peer normative goods and services which could be largely overcome by server side audio.

5.9 The Use of Screen Readers

Of the four groups of people listed in 5.8 (a) only blind and visually impaired people are likely to come into contact with screen readers.

The key factors with respect to screen readers is that they are extremely difficult to install, customise and use. For even the most skilled user they present the already noted problems of:

Geometric complexity
Compatibility disputes
Low mean time between faults (MTBF) (See 5.6 above).

Although there are now low cost and even free screen readers on the market, any implementation will require training and support.

Blindness and Visual Impairment. VICTAR [3] reports that a sample of Registered Blind users in the United Kingdom which was substantially biased in favour of younger people that only 7% use speech out on a computer. This figure will be lower if the demographic is shifted and if non Registered people are included.

CIC Screenreader.net [4] reports that during that during the past nine months 14,000 copies of its free Thunder screen reader have been downloaded. The other three major UK companies, Dolphin, Freedom Scientific and HumanWare have not reported but their figures will be small compared with the Thunder figure.

Screen readers require PC/Apple equipment. As blindness and visual impairment are heavily geared towards older people [5] and as PC/Apple use is skewed away from older people, there is clearly a mismatch between the demographic and the technology uptake.

It is reasonably safe to assume, given the blindness and visual impairment graphic and the demographic that the current use of screen readers amongst Registered Blind people is less than 25% and that the figure will fall for non-Registered blind people.

Elderly. There is no evidence that elderly people outside the blindness and visual impairment sector have any knowledge of screen reader technology.
Second Language. There is no evidence that people who wish to access a second language use screen reader technology to support their access to symbolic codes.
Learning/Development, Cognitive and Dyslexia. Screen readers will make the task of people with learning and other cognitive difficulties more difficult than the situation they currently face; what they need is defaulted server side page simplification which others can voluntarily amplify.

The introduction of free downloaded software will reduce the 'accessibility tax' to some extent but users will still require a substantial client side package and maintenance.

[1] Forrester Research, Inc.: “Phase I: The Market for Accessible Technology, and Phase II: Accessible Technology in Computing”: Forrester 2003 (for Microsoft Corp.) www.microsoft.com/enable/research/

[2] Disability Rights Commission (DRC): The Web: Access and Inclusion for Disabled People: A Formal Investigation conducted by the Disability Rights Commission, TSO, London, 2004

http://www.drc-gb.org/PDF/2.pdf

[3] University of Birmingham, School of Education, Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR), Network 1000

http://www.education.bham.ac.uk/research/victar/

[4] http://www.screenreader.net/

[5] United Kingdom Parliament: National Assistance Act 1948, HMSO, London, 1948 in: Tate, Rosemary et al: The Prevalence of Visual Impairment in the UK: A Review of the Literature, RNIB, London, in press.