Adaptive Software - Equity of Access: Adaptive Technology - The Research Center on Computing & Society

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Frances S. Grodzinsky

Adaptive Software

It is encouraging that many of the large computer manufacturers have recognized the need to address the issue of accessibility. Several have combined their efforts with manufacturers of adaptive devices to provide compatible interfaces. Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Sun all have web sites, which offer resources for accessibility. (See Resources) The World Wide Web Consortium, an organization that sets technical standards for the World Wide Web, has just released preliminary guidelines designed to help keep people with disabilities from being shut out of cyberspace.(12)

Sun’s web page on technology and research contains an article by Bergman and Johnson titled “Designing for Accessibility.” (2) In this article the authors state:

not only is providing access the right thing to do, but it is also a requirement in all current federal contracts as required by section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. In the commercial sector, The Americans with Disabilities Act calls for similar considerations when reasonably accommodating current and prospective employees.

Information technology companies who want federal contracts need to have adaptive interfaces for their disabled employees. Therefore, it is beneficial for software developers to provide interfaces to adaptive devices so that companies who are awarded federal contracts will use their software.

Sun recognizes that disabilities cross all sectors of the population and that the computer is a great equalizer. Bergman and Johnson write: “Like all computer users, users with disabilities vary in age, computer experience, interests and education. When barriers are removed, the computer gives them a tool to compete with all other users on an equal basis.” (2) Professor Norman Coombs’s personal experience confirms that assertion. Coombs states:

When I began utilizing the computer to communicate with my students, I had no idea of its potential to change my life and my teaching. First, it began by liberating me, a blind teacher, from my dependence on other people… [and]… only when a deaf student joined the class did I come to realize its potential. This young deaf woman said that this was the first time in her life that she had conversed with one of her teachers without using an interpreter intermediary.(8)

Sun is building disability access into the Java platform. Support is forthcoming in four areas: Java accessibility API, Java accessibility utility classes, Java accessibility bridge to native code, and the pluggable look and feel of the Java foundation classes. (13) An exciting aspect of Sun’s effort is that

on a component-by-component basis, the presentation is programmatically determined, and can be chosen by the user. Instead of a visual presentation, a user could instead choose an audio presentation, or a tactile (e.g. Braille) presentation, or a combination of the two. This is one step toward equal accessibility for the blind, for example, who still have major problems because graphical user interfaces are not translated well by screen readers. With this support, a user wouldn’t need a separate Assistive Technology product interpreting the visual presentation of the program on the screen, but would instead have direct access to that program because it would interact with the user in his/her desired modality. (13)

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