Social ICT: Accessibility

One issue remain either unsolved or ignored even in some of the developed countries, and its a huge issue in poorer, badly governed countries. This issue is of integrating people with disabilities into the rest of society. One dimension of this issue is 'Accessibility'. In the physical world, the solution to this rests in providing the support for people with disabilities to enter a building, e.g. with ramps that is an alternative to stairs for those who use wheelchairs; or making sure buses, trains, planes allow accessible passage for them to get on, so that the bus' floor is at level with the pavement on the side of the street, or it has a folding ramp in it for wheelchairs. Similarly, for ICT, there is a need for accessibility for people with disabilities. This is thus a social awareness issue for manufacturers of ICT equipment and software.

Disabilities arise from the loss of any or many of the senses or physical function of a person. In interacting with technology, we use our hands, eyes, ears and our mouth, and thus the experience of ICT can be disrupted with a loss of any of them. There is a condition called 'low vision' whereby the print on this paper would be impossible for a person with that condition to read. A magnification of 5 times would possibly make it readable for them, or maybe more. Whereas a newspaper on its print is not readable then without a magnifying glass, the online version of a newspaper could achieve that magnification easily. Any website for that matter can make sure they have support for people with such disabilities. With the development of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that allow the separation of the styling of a site from its html (Hypertext Markup Language) code with holds the content, this has become easier for both website developers and also companies who make web browsers (the software you use to view a website). Mozilla's Firefox is an example of a browser that allows its users to magnify the text on pages easily.

Other features are necessary to make web browsers accessible to a majority of the people with disabilities, keeping in mind the different kinds of disabilities. One such feature would be to make a website readable by a 'Screen Reader'. This would be a separate software or one that is a plugin installed on the browser, that reads out the content shown on a browser. This will be helpful for those with any kind of visual impairment. However, how the content is arranged on the website can make it difficult for a screen reader to read the website, or the user will have a hard time navigating a website. To tackle issues like this, W3C.org has stepped in. W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium who lay down the standards of markup languages like html, and they have also laid down what needs to be done to ensure accessibility in surfing the internet. All that is laid out in a website maintained by the specialized Web Accessibility Initiative, and its very important to be noted by both who develop websites or those who make web browsers.

The US government has actually also gone a step in that direction by laying out guidelines of its own for what it accepts as 'accessible' technology, all grouped under an act termed Section 508. These have been laid out as a guideline to be followed and comply to by all federal agencies, and those working with them. If people with disabilities can handle data the same way as those without any disabilities can, there is nothing to stop them to function at the same level as any other colleague, or member of society.

Design of interfaces like keyboards for computers or keypads for phones also need to be considered for accessibility. Braille keyboards, keypads will be very helpful for people with blindness. People with low vision would need large keys with the characters in large size they can view. Phones like the Samsung's Touch Messenger is a good example of innovations made to increase inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream society. The Touch Messenger is a mobile phone whose interface uses braille number input, and can also send braille short messages (SMS) to other braille phones.

There is a strong movement within people with disabilities across all countries in taking charge of making sure their rights to all facilities enjoyed by people without disabilities are given and preserved. Over the years they have and are still striving to take charge of their own plight in society by demanding they be given the necessary facilities to operate normally in society. This is opposed to the idea that society will hand out things to them out of pity. To be able to do this successfully, accessibility to all forms of communication technology is vital to their purpose. Speaking locally, its probably easier to ensure that the people with disabilities in Bangladesh have more accessible technology, faster than providing accessibility on the streets and buildings. Even till now however, there is no Bangla screen reader. It has not been long that content has been able to be served in Bangla and so, the needs to have screen readers for Bangla are also quite untouched.