IT companies have made fortunes on a philosophy of mass
production and one size fits all. However, in a small but growing
part of the industry, a band of companies has stood this model on
its head.
For companies that produce hardware and software designed for
disabled people - known as
assistive
technology - low production runs and customisation are the
order of the day. Their products can be adapted to the individual
requirements of a user, allowing disabled people to communicate,
work, shop online, and so on.
Assistive technology has produced an extraordinary array of
devices, and the ingenuity of some products is startling. With the
aid of a small pipe that operates a two-state switch, a person with
little or no movement can do everything a non-disabled person can
with a computer simply by sipping and puffing on the
mouthpiece.
Eye gaze technology
Some developments are at the cutting edge of technology. For
example, eye gaze technology uses a camera to track the movement of
a user's pupils to detect where they are looking, and in this way
allows them to control a pointer, select options and operate an
on-screen keyboard.
Eye gaze systems, like many other assistive technologies, were
originally developed for quite a different purpose. For some years
they have been used by designers to track the way people respond to
web pages, advertisements and other complex images.
Researchers are trying to take tracking one step further by
building systems that detect the minute electrical charges
generated by the brain to allow users to control a machine by
thought. But that is still in the realms of science fiction.
The reality is that those who buy and develop IT are under
increasing pressure to ensure that their systems can be used by
everyone.
Legislation
The UK, in common with most developed countries, has a
Disability
Discrimination Act that calls on employers to
make their services available to disabled people, provided it
can be done at a reasonable cost.
Tighter legislation that puts more onus on technology developers
to make products accessible is on its way from the EU. It plans to
introduce a system of certificates for IT products and services
that guarantees accessibility.
One of the problems for disabled people is that while IT is
liberating, new technology tends to throw up fresh barriers.
Usually, technology companies neglect accessibility when developing
new products and have to adapt them later for disabled people.
PDAs and mobile phones are a case in point. Over the past three
years a lot of effort has gone into adding features that allow
blind and physically disabled people to operate these small
devices. The retrofitting could have been avoided if the
adaptations had been part of the original specifications.
Not that providing accessible IT needs to be very complicated.
Often it is just a matter of allowing a user to make adjustments to
the size of type on screen or the colour combinations in a display.
People with dyslexia - one of the most common disabilities in the
UK - can be helped enormously by being able to hear text rather
than reading it.
For now, assistive technology remains a niche market. Even the
market leaders get by on revenues of less than £5m per year - very
small potatoes in the IT world.
UK firms lead the world
It may be a specialist business, but the UK has a number of
market-leading firms. Dolphin
Computer Access, for example, has taken its range of screen
magnifiers, screen readers and text-to-speech products
overseas.
In the US the firm has targeted the education market, and in
Scandinavia Dolphin has acquired a local company. In the UK, it has
launched a campaign headed by Olympic rower Steve Redgrave to
promote text-to-speech systems for people with dyslexia.
"Companies such as Microsoft and Apple do include assistive
technology in their products. But where we excel is in the degree
of specialist knowledge we bring to a product. You need to immerse
yourself in the needs of a vision-impaired person in order to
develop products for them," says Steve Palmer, chief executive at
Dolphin.
"We have barely scratched the surface. The Disability
Discrimination Act has increased awareness among businesses that
people do not want to be marginalised. Increasingly, more
businesses are coming to talk to us. The challenge for us is to
persuade people to treat assistive technology as just another IT
product."
Much assistive technology is bought by the public sector through
schemes to support students at schools and colleges.
Inclusive
Technology distributes plasma screens, switch access systems
and communications aids for children who have problems
speaking.
The company's managing director, Martin Littler, has been
involved in technology for special educational needs since the
1980s. "A lot of advances in computers have worked to the
disadvantage of children with special needs," says Littler. "For
example, when mice came in many kids could not join in because they
could not use them."
He has been a trenchant critic of government policy towards
disabled children. "We are not quite as driven by fashion as the
mainstream sector," he says.
"Some of the things we sell, like communications aids, are
essential: many young people fall off a cliff when they lose their
voice. But the industry is dying for lack of government support,
and the situation has become worse over the past 10 years."
According to Littler, one of the problems is that the swing
towards putting children with special educational needs in
mainstream schools rather than in specialist ones has gone too far,
and funds previously available for technology in special schools
have been lost.
Charities
Charities also play an important part in developing and
promoting assistive technologies. Well-known charities such as the
Royal National Institute of the Blind and the
Royal
National Institute of the Deaf operate technology departments
that carry out research, promote technical solutions to their
members and even sell products.
The British Computer Society and IBM have also started a charity
devoted to IT, called
AbilityNet. The
organisation provides information and assistance on accessible IT
through helplines, assessments, equipment loans and its own
website.
"IT is a great leveller," says AbilityNet's chief executive
Nigel Lewis. "It enables you to work often, with just a few free or
cheap tweaks to a standard system. People at the other end of the
communications link do not know if you are disabled."
Accessibility in the workplace
Lewis warns that too many organisations want to lock down their
systems so that users cannot change their desktop PCs. He urges IT
departments to provide systems that are flexible enough to allow
users to adjust them to suit their needs.
Assistive technology is not just about helping people with
disabilities. Those involved in the field argue that many people
have problems with IT but are afraid to admit it. So offering
people alternative ways of accessing technology benefits
everyone.
For example, in the workplace it can head off potential damage
caused by repetitive strain injury. Keyboards that can be adjusted
to minimise the strain of typing, or software designed to limit the
number of mouse movements in applications such as computer aided
design, help to reduce damage to arms and hands.
Mainstream suppliers are responding to the demand for more
accessibility. Apple, for example, has incorporated a
screen
reader (software that converts text and data into speech for
people who have difficulty reading) into its OS X operating system,
and boasts of being the biggest provider of screen readers in the
world.
Not to be outdone, Microsoft has upped its game. The Vista
operating system has
in-built
accessibility features, including speech recognition, which is
almost as accurate as specialist standalone dictation systems such
as Dragon
NaturallySpeaking.
EA Draffen, a research fellow at the University of Southampton,
has compiled a database of assistive technology. She expects to see
more mainstream products incorporating assistive technology in the
future. "If Microsoft and Apple go on adding to their systems then
the assistive technology market may shift to simpler tools or even
free tools. The elderly just cannot afford £700 apiece for
software."
For all that, the future for assistive technology companies is
bright. The ageing of people in the developed world who grew up
with IT and expect to stay online means increasing demand for
products that will help them do that.
There is also a growing awareness among companies of the need to
cater for disabled customers and employees. The UK's eight million
disabled people spend some £80bn per year and represent an untapped
workforce that employers often overlook.
Assistive technology, with its emphasis on fitting technology to
people, not only provides the means to unlock this potential, but
also provides a blueprint for the rest of the IT industry.
● John Lamb is the publisher ofAbility
, a publication about IT for disabled people
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