FodnessMemo05

Working Title: Touchscreens for the Blind: Disability and Technology Design.

Keywords: disability, information technology, section 508, americans with disabilities act, rehabilitation act

Data Sets

> Interviews with blind, deaf, and other disabled individuals to determine how they use IT devices, interviews with educators at colleges and trade schools regarding what is in the curriculum about designing accessible IT, interviews with software developers and managers about what corporate policies and practices exist for integrating accessibility into the design of IT systems, review of the Rehabilitation Act - specifically Section 508, which deals with disability and IT, research into other federal and state policies regarding accessibility and IT, court cases and news stories regarding clashes between the disabled and owners of inaccessible IT devices and/or software.

Social / Theoretical Questions

> In what ways are the disabled capable of interacting with their environment based on physical and social constraints established by policy and norms? > Is designing for disability held as a cultural value, or does it need to be actively enforced through policy and regulation? > How does IT redefine what it means to be disabled? > How do assistive technologies construct cyberspace for the disabled?

Research Questions

> How do individuals with disabilities use IT devices? Are they more, less, or equally able to use IT devices than traditionally able individuals? > What assistive software exists? Is it built into operating systems / browsers / etc or does it need to be bolted on afterwards? Is it free, or how much does it cost? Do subsidies exist and are they easy to obtain? > What corporate / federal / state policies exist with respect to assistive technologies and access? > What software-level restrictions are in place for enforcing assistive functionality? Is assistive functionality provided actively or passively in different technologies, and why? > What education frameworks exist at the trade school and university level for teaching development for disability?

Why Now?

> Because there has been increasing scrutiny in past years wrt individuals with disabilities being an underserved community in the area of IT. For example, the recent lawsuit against Target by the National Federation for the Blind due to target.com being inaccessible to individuals using screen readers due to partial or total blindness. As IT has become more pervasive in everyday life, and is all but required in order to perform certain tasks, my hypothesis is that IT has enabled traditionally abled individuals and further disabled the disabled individuals, even though IT has the capability to reduce or remove barriers created by disability.

How Prepared?

> I worked with implementing disability-ready (Section 508 compliant) websites and IT devices at the Department of Labor for three years and designing accessible websites both professionally and personally. During my IT education at RPI I was never instructed in how to design accessible websites or how to build IT applications so that they were accessible.

Bias?

> I think that individuals with disabilities are underserved, and that they should be granted the same level of access to content through IT devices as the traditionally abled, even if it means greater cost in time, effort, and money to corporations designing IT devices. I also believe that individuals with disabilities should not have to pay any more for the IT devices than the traditionally abled. My research may prove that individuals with disabilities are more enabled through IT than they were otherwise, even with the limitations in place.

Fields of Work?

> Disabilities studies in an STS department, technology and IT studies in an IT or computer science or STS department, software design in an IT or computer science department, website and user interface design in an IT or computer science or STS department, IT policy in an IT or computer science or STS or political science department.

Funders

> NSF, USFG, Educational Institutions, NIST, Disability Advocacy Groups, W3C.