Submission on the needs of blind and visually impaired people in the information Society

Prepared by Ronan McGuirk - November 1999

Introduction

This is a joint submission from the National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) and the Visually Impaired Computer society (VICS). This submission considers access to the Information Society for blind and partially sighted people. We would like to thank the Information society Commission for giving us this opportunity to express our interest in the Information Society.

Executive Summary

Up to 18%of the population of Ireland have a disability. Traditionally this group has experienced serious disadvantages in accessing information. In the Information Society, access to information for people with disabilities is technically possible, but will not happen automatically. It is up to the Irish Government and the European union to ensure that the information Society is inclusive. This must happen at the design stage.

Assistive Technology

Assistive technologies exist today, which provide synthetic speech, large print or Braille access for blind and partially sighted people to computer systems. This technology consists of a range of hardware and software solutions which are added on to standard computer equipment to provide an alternative form of access. These assistive technologies work reasonably well with many common Windows applications. The key to making the Information Society inclusive, is to ensure that information systems and technology in general is capable of interfacing with assistive technologies, and to ensure that assistive technologies keep pace with technological change.

Although this submission is written from the point of view of blind and partially sighted people, there is a good deal of commonality between the needs of this group and the needs of other disability groups. For example, many other groups who would experience difficulties in reading a print book, would benefit from obtaining a book as an electronic document, as would blind people. Other groups would use different assistive technologies to access the same underlying electronic document.

It is important that information systems be developed with assistive technology in mind.

Recommendations

An awareness programme should be launched to advise IT designers of the needs of people with disabilities, and of the existence of assistive technology.

Social issues

The report of the Commission on the Status of people with Disabilities (1995), indicated that people with disabilities (and particular blind and partially sighted people) have traditionally experienced difficulties in accessing information. For example, only a tiny proportion of printed material is ever published in Braille or audiotape.

The Information Society provides an enormous opportunity to address this disadvantage. However, experience has taught us that access to a new information medium doesn't happen automatically. This is primarily a policy issue. If policy-makers consider people with disabilities to be part of society, then access to the information Society will follow.

Recommendations

All Irish Government Information Society Regulations, standards and policies should be 'disability-proofed'.

All Electronic Government facilities should be vetted to ensure that they are usable by people with disabilities.

Economic Issues

Ireland is experiencing a skill shortage especially in the IT sector. People with disabilities have always had a high level of unemployment. This has had many causes, not least of which is inaccessible workplaces. In the information Society the workplace increasingly means the electronic environment. If inclusive access is provided to the electronic environment, and adequate education and training opportunities are available to people with disabilities, a new pool of skills could become available to the Irish and European workforce.

Making the electronic environment accessible needn't be expensive. Assistive technologies already exist. It is important to make the Internet, mobile phones etc accessible from the design stage rather than trying to fix inaccessible systems after they are constructed.

We could consider the analogy of a public building such as a hotel. If a hotel was designed and built without consideration of wheelchair access, it could cost a lot to introduce wider doorways, wheelchair -friendly lifts and toilets etc after the event. If the building is designed from the start to be accessible the construction costs will not be significantly more expensive than an inaccessible hotel. The same is true of computer systems.

Recommendations

All regulations, standards and policies should have inclusive design incorporated from the start. Education and training courses should be inclusive. Priority should be given to removing electronic barriers in the workplace.

Technical Standards

There is a wide range of information and communications standards. These are evolving rapidly. In recent years it has been a welcome development that some standards consider the needs of blind and partially sighted people. The XML document standard is a case in point. If the Information Society is to be inclusive however, it is vital that all technical standards should provide for the needs of people with disabilities.

Fortunately there is a good deal of commonality across the needs of different disability groups. It should also be noted that systems which are designed for ease of use for people with disabilities are usually easier to use for the general public also.

A great deal of research has been carried out internationally, into technical requirements for people with disabilities, by COST219 among others.

Recommendations

A panel of technical experts should be set up to review and revise all developing technical standards to ensure inclusivity. This must be done at both Irish and E.U. level.

Internet Access

Blind and partially sighted people use assistive technologies to access the Internet. Electronic mail and the World Wide Web are the main Internet features in use. The degree to which web pages can be read with such access technology depends on how the web pages are designed. We commend the Irish Government on the launch of Web Design guidelines for the Public Service on November 16th last.

The Internet standards body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a set of accessibility guidelines. These can be found at W3C If followed, these guidelines make websites accessible to people across a range of disabilities. For example, one of the guidelines states that all graphics should have a text label. This means that the graphic can be understood by a blind person by means of speech synthesis. This is obviously relevant if the text label explains a graphic used as a link to another web page.

These guidelines, if followed, will make websites more usable for everyone, not just people with disabilities, and incidentally, have the added benefits of making the WebPages faster to download and easier to maintain.

Recommendations

A standard 'look and feel' should be adopted for all public service Irish and European Union websites. An Irish and E.U. standard for accessible web design should be adopted. We suggest initially www.w3.org/wai. (We note with appreciation the Irish government's recently launched web design guidelines).

An E.U. Directive should be issued, that E.U. and member state, public service websites must comply with the above accessibility standard

We suggest that An E.U. Information Society Access Quality logo should be designed - all compliant public service websites to display the logo.

Permission should be given to any commercial website complying with The standard to display the logo.

Electronic Document Publication

Most printed publications nowadays, such as , books, magazines newspapers, start life as an electronic computer file. Though the final published article may be inaccessible to blind or partially sighted people, the original computer file is potentially accessible by means of assistive technology. The availability of such original computer files from publishers is a matter of logistics and copyright protection.

An ever-increasing amount of material is now being published on the World Wide Web. Many electronic document publication standards exist. These include various types of word processing formats, html, pdf etc. Our information suggests that ASCII text or xml are likely to be the most accessible formats for blind and partially sighted people using assistive technologies.

Recommendations

An accessible electronic document publication standard should be adopted and all public service documents should be published accordingly.

Telecommunications

There is rapid development in the telecommunications industry especially since de-regulation. Telephones have usually been quite accessible to blind and partially sighted people, indeed, the telephony sector has provided them with many jobs over the years. There have been a number of problems however, in particular, the provision of accessible telephone directories.

Mobile phone technology is developing rapidly. One development is that increasing use is being made of the screen display on phone handsets.

Recommendations

The regulations controlling the telecommunications industry, at Irish and E.U. level, should be amended to ensure that all operators provide accessible telephone directories and billing systems.

A standard should be issued that all mobile phone handset menu options should be accessible via voiced feedback.

Digital Audio Broadcasting

Digital Audio Broadcasting is an emerging technology. This offers the opportunity of including text messages as part of a radio broadcast and envisages new radio receivers which will display the text messages. It is possible that such radios could be unusable by blind people unless their needs are taken into consideration.

Recommendations

Irish and E.U. regulations concerning digital audio broadcasting should ensure that blind people can use the technology.

Consultation

In developing Information Society policies, standards and regulations it is important that consideration should always be given to an inclusive information society. It is vital that all strands of society are consulted as part of this process. This is important since many information system designers and policy -makers may be unaware of the needs of people with disabilities, and how easy it would be to meet these needs, with an inclusive approach to design and policy.

Recommendations

An on-going dialogue should commence between the information society Commission and experts in the disability access field. A panel of experts in access for people with disabilities should be appointed to review and make recommendations on all aspects of information Society policy. This should be at both Irish and European level.

Ireland and the European Union

Ireland is a small country and it is clear that most policy decisions will be taken at E.U. level. A European ministerial review of the Information Society is planned under the Portuguese presidency next April. This review will include the subject of access to the Internet for people with disabilities. We urge the Irish Government to take the recommendations in this submission forward to this review meeting.

Contact Information

The Visually Impaired Computer society (VICS) is a special interest group of the Irish Computer society. It consists of about 100 members of varying backgrounds and interests.

VICS Chairman
Michael Lavin Tel 6045106
National Council for the blind of Ireland
Chief Executive Desmond P Kenny Tel 8307033.