Accessibility can be a dirty word in tech circles.
When most designers, developers and engineers think of accessibility, they see it as a restrictive set of features hastily added at the end of a build process.
Of course, as anybody who knows the history of accessible design understands, the opposite is true. The desire to build inclusive and assistive technologies has often driven major breakthroughs, providing spillover benefits to a far wider range of users than previously planned.
The term often used for these positive externalities is “curb cuts”. Curb cuts, or curb ramps, are mandated by legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and allow wheelchair users to access footpaths without assistance. However curb cuts also allow cyclists, pram pushers, and grocery shoppers to easily maneuver through public spaces. Nowadays, curb cuts are so pervasive that many of us don’t think twice about why they exist in the first place. What once seemed like an intrusive legal requirement has simply become common sense.
Bell Labs
In fact, curb cuts are far from the most significant example of improvements brought about from a demand for more inclusive experiences. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, began his career as an elocution coach, teaching deaf students how to improve their speech. Driven by the needs of his students, Bell became obsessed with the prospect of creating a “hearing machine”, leading eventually to the development of the first telephone in 1876. By attempting to build a technology that could transform the experience of disabled users, Bell had invented a tool that would completely upend human communication forever.
The technological breakthroughs didn’t stop with the telephone. From the late 1940s, scientists at Bell Labs worked on building a smaller more efficient alternative to the vacuum tube used in early electronic devices. Initially, this was intended to allow for the manufacture of smaller more convenient hearing aids. In 1947, Bell Labs had produced the first working transistor, which would completely revolutionise electrical engineering. However, according to plan, this new technology was first commercialised in the production of hearing aids, with further breakthroughs into radio manufacture only occurring in the mid-1950s.
Everyday accessibility
Beyond historic breakthroughs in science and engineering, accessible design has also improved a range of small, but significant, user experiences. Some examples include:
- The use of captions on television shows, movies and videogames for deaf users (but also used by anybody in a busy or noisy environment)
- The development of voice activated technology for paralysed and blind users (although now used by a far wider range of users through services like Siri and Alexa)
- The use of alt text on websites, which was implemented for blind users, but improves SEO and keeps a site usable for those with poor internet access.
- Autofill and predictive text, which were first developed for users with physical disabilities.
In conclusion, you may not understand the details of accessible design, but you have certainly experienced the benefits. By honing in on the experience of disabled users, we can find solutions which improve the overall quality of your product and user interface, for every user.
If you’d like to see how accessible design can transform your business, get in touch with our team!
