Many people wonder why I am so passionate about accessibility, and this is my number one reason: There are so many ways that technology liberates people with disabilities. I can’t help but be upset when something that could be life changing fails. In this post, I will talk about how what might just be a convenience for some will be essential for others.
There is so much technology we all depend on today. But technology does much more for people with disabilities. Within my lifetime I have seen people who are marginalized due to an inability to perform a simple task, now able to do that task and contribute to society more than ever before. A person with a disability might have had to live their existence without being able to leave their home and/or institution. Sometimes these people have so much to offer everyone, and without tools they are not able to share their gift with the world. Think how much Stephen Hawking contributed to science. How much farther behind would we be if he did not have the ability to use technology.
Writing tools
Imagine a writer that has the ability to write the world’s next bestseller not being able to give us that book without access to word processing. We would be so lucky to hear that person’s thoughts and ideas. If that person has a disability, there are so many things that can block them from expressing themselves.
Most of us today take word processing for granted. We go to work and write documents, emails, reports and spreadsheets. But what if we did not have computers? Some might pick up a pen and do many of those things without another thought, but a person that can’t hold that pen loses their ability to do these simple everyday tasks.
One of the first students I worked with at UC Berkeley was not able to handwrite due to dyslexia and dysgraphia. When he started working with me, he had already learned how to use software tools to help with spelling and was able to use dictation software to compensate for the dysgraphia. Today he is a doctor in a hospital. When the hospital told all the doctors they needed to start using speech to dictate their patient notes, he was able to not only do so faster than his peers but also teach them how to use the tool.
Communication
Many of us take our mobile devices for granted. We play games on them and use Snapchat and Facebook when we are bored. But for some people like my first roommate, phones can be essential. She was not able to answer the phone if an attendant was not there. So, she would sit for hours waiting for the next shift to even have someone to talk to. I remember coming home and finding her sitting in the middle of the room, needing the bathroom and waiting for the attendant that was late. She couldn’t even know whether the person was on the way or not because they could not call her to tell her the bus was late. Today, she would be able to have a cell phone on her chair and answer calls on her own. She would even be able to watch a video or listen to music during the times that no attendants were on shift.
Shopping
My roommate also had to get the attendants to go grocery shopping for her, and many of them would not take her when they did this. Instead, they would go before their shift, and she would then have no way to impulse buy. How many times have you stood in line at the grocery store and bought a chocolate bar just because you saw it? In the whole time I lived with her, I never knew her to buy anything impulsive at all. I can only hope that today she can use an app and buy whatever she wants. And hey, even save the attendants time.
My family uses grocery delivery apps all the time. During the COVID pandemic. It was the safest way for us to get food. Yes, today it’s not necessary. But we find it so much faster and easier than getting in the car and driving and getting through the people and mess of a store, so we keep doing it. Again, some people with disabilities are not doing this because the apps in their area are not accessible. They have to find more expensive ways like getting attendants to shop for them.
Finances
My roommate was dependent on a court appointed guardian to hire and pay her care attendants. One time, the guardian was out of the country and forgot to write the checks for the attendants. One of them quit before the guardian could pay her, leaving my roommate without help for a few shifts. Imagine what she could have done if banking apps like Square or Zell were around.
Today I pay my housekeeper using Zell all the time. Even when I am not home, I know when she shows up by the alerts from my home security system. I can then send a payment even while she is still doing the work, even if I am across the world. This means that I can come home to a clean house no matter how I left it. I know she was there, and my house is clean again.
In my household, I am the person who pays the bills and balances the accounts. I used to have to pay a reader $5 an hour for about 4 hours per week to manage mail and bills. Today I see my reader for about 2 hours a month and we are moving towards needing less time with more tasks automated and/or that are moved online. For example, all my doctors’ bills are now app driven so I pay them on my own. The bills get paid faster than if I had to wait for my reader. These apps and such may just be convenient for you but I can’t even think about losing access like this. My reader today gets $45 an hour, which would be exorbitant if I had to hire her for the many hours I used to need.
Conclusion
For me, these tools are not all essential, but they do make me more able to do everything independently. Not every app is accessible, so if you live in a small town the app you have available to use might not be as good as the ones I have in the heart of Silicon Valley. So yes, I get upset when I find inaccessible tools because I know that these tools that might be just considered a convenience for many can make a difference for others.