Disability and ICT Access
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A Cabinet Office briefing from humanITy
Date: 02/08/2002
Article
0. Preliminary
0.1 This document, prepared by humanITy, is the intellectual property of the Office of the e-Envoy and may be circulated by it at its own discretion subject to humanITy's authorship being duly acknowledged when it is quoted in full or in part.
1. Introduction
1.1 For a variety of technological and cultural reasons, public policy tends to define Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in terms of computers with a keyboard/mouse input and a visual display unit (VDU) output. This Briefing will range wider than this narrow interpretation but will not dwell at length on the centrally vital issues to disabled people of the accessibility of public broadcasting. One remark will suffice here; that we should not make the same accessibility mistakes in the digital age which were made in the analogue age to the extent that after almost eight decades of paying a 'compulsory' across-the-board tax (The BBC Licence Fee), most output was still not accessible to people with certain kinds of functional limitation.
1.2 However disability is defined (see Section 2. below), there are five basic, overlapping cases for making information systems accessible:
- Legal.
- Fiscal
- Market
- Moral
- Efficiency
1.3 Legal. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) is based on the idea of making "Reasonable Adjustment" which depends upon the size and purposes of the enterprise and the nature of its likely customers/users. Because digital technology is rapidly developing and quintessentially 'plastic', the idea of compliance cannot be static (see Section 5. below).
The European Union is planning a Directive on Disability in 2003 which will contain elements concerning ICT accessibility.
1.4 Fiscal. In the case of Government/Public Sector information and public broadcasting there is, in addition to the legal case, a fiscal case for accessibility. Citizens pay for Government information and so they are entitled to it; and any citizen who wishes to access broadcasting must pay what amounts to a flat rate tax (the BBC Licence Fee) whose non-payment was until recently subject to criminal proceedings.
1.5. Market. Although this case does not apply to the Government itself, the market case is important when the Government is promoting accessibility.
1.6 Moral. The moral case for accessibility depends upon the mission and vision of the organisation providing information. In the case of the Government/public sector, the moral case underpins the legal and fiscal cases.
1.7 Efficiency. If ICT exclusion remains above a given level, the Government/Public Sector may have to contemplate running parallel analogue and digital systems.
2. Demographics and Disability
2.1 Disability is largely an epidemiological or an administrative construct. In the former, physical and mental impairment is measured and tabulated in order to compile morbidity statistics. In the latter case definitions - in the UK largely functional rather than epidemiological - in order to demarcate recipients of special benefits, exemptions from standard provisions and eligibility to be counted as beneficiaries of Registered Charities etc. This group of people is said to constitute approximately 10% of the global population.
2.2 The idea of legal disability is not immediately intuitive; for example the public generally think of "blind" as totally blind whereas 95% of those who could, if they wished, be Registered as blind have some useful residual vision but have a visual acuity of below 3/60.
2.3 Those who are Registered as Disabled may not have a functional problem in respect of ICT. A wheelchair user may be an above average PC user. The only way to establish an effective demographic is to divide the functions which an information system requires and those which an individual possesses (*1).
2.4 Although there are exceptions, it is generally the case that the greater the number of sufferers from any syndrome, the milder it is. This is the case with the major cluster of disabilities, namely:
- Learning/Cognitive
- Physical
- Hearing
- Visual
Again, to take an example from the visual impairment field, there are very few totally blind people but approximately 15% of the working population cannot read Times New Roman 10-point print on screen which is the default for many ICT office systems. As disability and the acquisition of minor impairments is largely age related it can be expected that that 15% will rise with age.
2.5 ICT functionality, therefore, is quite complex to assess but is much more extensive than classical disability. To obvious factors such as inadequate vision or hearing, weak grip, short attention span, there must also be added a much less definable problem of bewilderment and phobia.
2.6 The largest single group to consider are those with learning and cognitive difficulties firmly based on a functional illiteracy rate of 20% (*2). Some of this may be the result of alienation from formal learning and training systems. This analysis does not attempt to divide symptoms by etiology.
2.7 Overall, we believe it is fair to say that approximately half of our global population cannot use current ICT systems effectively. In other words, if the whole population were given a Pentium and an unlimited training voucher they would not be able to fulfil the 'Simple' functions in Table 1 (*3)
2.8. In conclusion, it is important to note the point about the relationship between the human being and the system. The largest single problem with current accessibility is information systems design; if computers were designed to the standard of consumer electronics and if software was designed to the same standards as BBC television output access would be much less of a problem. Much of what currently passes for "Training" is actually a cost transfer from producers to consumers. The simple remedy is to subject operating systems and software to consumer legislation and forbid the licensing system.
3. Interfaces, Client and Server Side Applications
3.1 We are currently living in an era of over-engineering but this will be transitional. We rely for our information on an excess of user interfaces: television, radio, telephone, PC, Games device, CD player, DVD etc. Soon we will have two devices, one which we carry and one which acts as the digital nerve centre of our home. This will have two major implications for disabled people:
- First, user interfaces will be modular and customisable
- Secondly, savings on hardware will allow more expenditure on telecommunications and software.
3.2 The disability sector has traditionally concentrated on the user interface but the central problem is now digital information design. The WAI WCAG 1.0 (Web Accessibility Initiative Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) are very limited and are, in any case, about to be replaced with a Version 2.0 which will be much less auto checkable and much more 'high level'. WCAG Version 1.0 is far too heavily biased towards text in HTML 4.0 rendered in CSS 2.0 and the description of static graphics.
3.3 Digital information design is central to our future. The basic requirements are that:
- Multimedia must be multimodal, i.e. each strand should be supportive but independently comprehensive * Data should be optimally granular, built from the most basic components
- All data should have adequate metadata.
If these basic standards are met then information systems will be customisable and they will also be able to react to user behaviour.
3.4 It is now possible to envisage the virtuous parallel developments of the modular, customisable interface and the modular, customisable information system. Traditionally the disability sector has concentrated on the interface but it now needs to concentrate much more strongly on digital information design.
3.5 Another key point is that the initial design of information should ensure that it can be used on different platforms. If this is the case, then disabled people will be able to rely for accessibility on server side upgrades which are much cheaper and more rapidly implemented than client side changes.
3.6 There has been a good deal of discussion around the concept of Design for All as a means to meet an accessibility criteria in ICT systems. Of course, the term itself is hyperbole; no system can be designed to meet every need of every individual. The most helpful idea, which fits in with the DDA is 'optimal' design, i.e. a design which results from a rational balance of the input cost and output benefit. To use an example, it would be extremely cost/beneficial to incorporate synthetic speech into almost all information systems because the cost is low and the number of beneficiaries very high but the opposite would be the case with refreshable braille displays. The notion of cost/benefit is, of course, radically altered both by falling costs and by a proper appreciation of the demographic.
3.7. Finally in this Section, a brief note on Language Engineering. We are quite accustomed to engineering being used to translate between languages but not so used to engineering within them. The prospect of the ability to simplify sentence structure and lexicography using tools is alluring both to those who have learning/cognitive difficulties but also to information providers who are forced to pass their information to citizens through biased intermediaries like newspapers. The objective should be a simplification system which is wholly retro traceable so that whatever level of simplification is being invoked, the user can go 'backwards' through the tools and processes and see the initial authentic authored document. This is vital to the retention of trust. Short does not mean simple, so it is best to imagine a matrix with percentage of a document length on one axis and the lexicographic range on the other.
4. Government Policy and User Priorities
4.1 From the point of view of the user, access to information systems via ICT does not primarily mean the PC/Apple with a software bundle but means broadcasting and telecommunications. That noted, the following are user priorities in the on-line sector:
- Benefits Information
- Health Information
4.2 This is a fortunate fit with the Government's priorities. Its general priority is to provide on line access for all who want it by 2005. Unfortunately, those who do not want it are precisely those that the Government wants to want it. Some 87% of Government transactions take place with what used to be called Social Classes D and E who are precisely those who: * Are in receipt of benefits or require a high level of health information; have the lowest PC/Apple penetration.
4.2 The key to designing usable services is to recognise that on-line information can be much more user friendly and flexible than analogue information. Imagine providing a benefits claimant with a simple form where the advisory notes pop up in the box being completed and where a tool immediately tells the user when she needs to try again to complete. Imagine, too, if she makes three unsuccessful attempts and the system immediately refers her to a human being. Imagine that a person seeking health information can choose between:
- The use of keywords
- An image map
- A taxonomy suited to numeric keypads
4.3 There is a requirement that Government information should not only be intuitive but also attractive and this is thought to conflict with accessibility requirements. This is not the case; there is no reason why sites should not be both but this is an area which needs much more work as it requires people to think creatively both about the principle that multimedia should be multimodal and that tools need to be integrated with data and metadata. Customisation can then be invoked to allow a system to select user preferences and 'jump' over or 'go round' renderings of data which the user does not want.
4.4 One area where the Government needs to make urgent preparations is in the conjunction of the DDA and the Freedom of Information Act. Officials are already seriously worried about handling legacy accessibility on a mass basis but this should only be undertaken on an individual basis with compliance based on standards going forward (see Section 5 below).
4.5 A key area for full citizenship is that which concerns data input. Sticking strictly to technology, the Government should urge manufacturers to provide digital television with the means of attaching peripherals like keyboards and printers and the facility for voice input.
4.6 Traditionally, disabled people and others who required special representation relied upon a mass of NGO intermediary bodies to protect their interests. The advent of the internet means that consultative periods have become ever shorter which in turn means that many such NGOs have to act at officer level without the benefit of consumers/Legal Trustees. This is serious and requires some examination.
4.7. Further, Government should look at the establishment of a class of Trusted, Legally Registered Intermediaries to act on behalf of disabled people in on-line transactions (*4).
4.8 Finally in this Section, all the information accumulated so far should point to the breakdown of the distinction between disabled People as such and many other people who have difficulty with information systems. The Government may need to meet certain requirements by virtue of legislation which specifies Disabled People but its mission to put people on-line crosses many sectoral boundaries.
5. Plasticity
5.1 Neither legislation nor standards, technology nor pricing, will stand still. This means that compliance with, high-level principles will change. AS we go into the world of multimedia WCAG 1.0 compliance at Level A will just not be good enough.
5.2 This means that we need to establish a good general rule about compliance going forward because if we worry about legacy compliance we will always be behind rather than in step with peer access. Such a rule should, in general terms, be:
- Any information system being constructed or radically upgraded should comply with standards that will be in force a year from launch or re-launch date.
References
- Petrie, H & Carey, K: (“Disability Discrimination Act : Access for All”, The British Computer Society, 2000)
- OECD (“Literacy in the Information Age : Final Report of the International Adult Literacy Survey”, OECD, 2000)
- Table 1 (see below)
- Carey, K: ICT, Exclusion and Public Policy, Chapter (“The E-Connected World : Its Social and Political Implications”, McGill University Press, Nov. 2002) In Press
Table 1
| Individual | Collaborative | |
|---|---|---|
| Basic |
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| Advanced |
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