Stuff

    Subscribe to our newsletter

    What's Hot
    YouTube replay

    YouTube’s new ‘most replayed’ feature will let viewers skip straight to the popular bits

    May 19, 2022
    Eye Test main

    Your driver’s license eye test can soon be done at any optometrist, pending a government deal

    May 19, 2022
    Digital Rand

    South Africa’s digital Rand is inbound, crypto asset regulation may begin by early 2023

    May 19, 2022
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube SoundCloud
    Trending
    • YouTube’s new ‘most replayed’ feature will let viewers skip straight to the popular bits
    • Your driver’s license eye test can soon be done at any optometrist, pending a government deal
    • South Africa’s digital Rand is inbound, crypto asset regulation may begin by early 2023
    • Cryptocurrencies: why they’ve crashed and what it could mean for their future
    • Asus ZenScreen Go MB16AWP review – Zen and the art of monitoring yourself constantly
    • Google’s Interview Warmup uses AI to help users perform better during job interviews
    • Asus ROG announces a new R76,000 gaming beast and a smaller R40k foldyboi
    • How to beef up your cybersecurity
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Stuff Stuff
    • News
      • App News
      • Business News
      • Camera News
      • Gaming News
      • Headphone News
      • Industry News
      • Internet News
      • Laptops News
      • Motoring News
      • Other Tech News
      • Phone News
      • Tablet News
      • Technology News
      • TV News
      • Wearables News
    • Reviews
      • Camera Reviews
      • Featured Reviews
      • Game Reviews
      • Headphone Reviews
      • Laptop Reviews
      • Other Tech Reviews
      • Phone Reviews
      • Tablet Reviews
      • Wearables Reviews
    • Columns
    • Stuff Guides
    • Podcasts & Videos
      • Videos
      • Stuffed
      • Stuffing Around
      • Tech Byte
      • T2S2
    • Win
    • Subscribe
      • Print
      • Digital
        • Google Play
        • iTunes
        • Download
        • Zinio
    • Stuff Shop
      • Shop Now
      • My Account
      • Downloads
    • Contact Us
      • Get In Touch
      • Advertise
    0 Shopping Cart
    Stuff
    Home » News » Other Tech News » Why getting more people with disabilities developing technology is good for everyone
    News

    Why getting more people with disabilities developing technology is good for everyone

    The ConversationBy The ConversationJune 4, 2021Updated:October 1, 2021No Comments5 Mins Read
    disabilities main
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Unless you’re blind or know someone who is, you might not know that blind people use the same smartphones as sighted people. In fact, many blind people use touch-screen smartphones every day. The secret is that smartphones have a screen reader, a tool that allows blind people to use a mix of gestures and taps, along with vibrations or audio feedback, to use their apps.

    Screen readers work on desktop computers as well as mobile devices. You can usually find the screen reader in settings under accessibility. On iPhones the screen reader is VoiceOver. It provides a verbal description of what’s on the screen, including buttons to click and other actions available to the user. A well-designed website or app user interface makes the information on the website or app accessible to the screen reader, which makes it accessible to blind users. However, a badly designed website or application will be rendered invisible to a screen reader.

    We are researchers who focus on technology design that is usable for people with all kinds of disabilities. We’ve found that more needs to be done to make technology accessible and inclusive, such as improving design tools so they are accessible to screen reader users.

    It’s not just a matter of fairness and inclusion. Accessible technology is generally better for everyone. An app or website that causes problems for a screen reader is likely to be more difficult than an accessible app or website for anyone to use because it will take more time or effort.

    Observing people is good; their participation is better

    At first, user interface designers found that the best way to create accessible technology was to study how people with different disabilities used touch screens. For example, early researchers reported that blind users sometimes found locating small icons and specific numbers on the on-screen keypad difficult and time-consuming.

    To solve this, accessibility researchers used the whole touch screen as an input and navigation control, similar to a game console controller. Instead of having to touch a particular part of the screen, users can tap anywhere in response to audio prompts. These insights would have been impossible to come by without including blind people in the evaluation and design of touch screens.

    User interface design best practices have long included users in the design process. Including users with disabilities results in more accessible technology. Yet many technologies are still not accessible out of the box to users with disabilities.

    One way to make apps and websites more accessible is to have people with disabilities designing the technologies. But the design process itself is not very accessible to those very people. Few tools in the user interface designer toolbox are themselves accessible. It’s a Catch-22.

    Accessible tech requires accessible design tools

    Little research has been conducted about how accessible the user interface design process is, including for blind people. Our recent research evaluated the accessibility of prototyping software, which allows user interface designers to create temporary mock-ups of user interface designs to show clients or to test with users. This software is instrumental to the field. Examples include Balsamiq, Adobe XD and UXPin.

    Low- to high-fidelity mock-ups of user interfaces allow designers to play around with layouts before committing to a final design.

    We found that most popular prototyping software is not compatible with screen readers. Therefore, the prototyping software is not accessible to blind designers who use screen readers.

    We tested two common screen readers, VoiceOver on MacOS and Narrator on Windows, with popular prototyping software and documented when and where they provided access to the different buttons and features in the prototyping software.

    Although we found some compatibility, such as screen readers identifying a button and indicating that the button could be selected, other aspects were less clear for screen reader users. For example, the prototyping software might not present information that the screen reader could pass on to the user to indicate what a given button does, like change the font size of text. Or it might not clearly allow the screen reader to focus on the button to select it, which is necessary for the user to be able to “click” the button.

    A screen shot of a prototyping tool’s four major components: the canvas workspace, navigating layers of content, the individual elements that make up the design and the element parameters. VoiceOver is enabled and its visual caption panel floats on top of the canvas workspace, indicating that a button is selected.

    Ultimately, the limited access uncovered in our research is severe enough to conclude that a blind designer would not be able to use the software to create mock-ups of their own.

    A better future is accessible

    Accessibility is an issue that touches everyone. Providing access to technology is legally required in most cases. In the past, organizations that failed to provide adequate access have faced lawsuits.

    But accessibility is also a hallmark of good technology. Many technologies that people take for granted today came about when innovators designed for users with disabilities, including optical character recognition, which allows computers to read printed text.

    Building accessibility into the design process is crucial. And while it is useful for designers to be aware of how users with disabilities interact with technologies, the most powerful insights may come from those with disabilities themselves. No matter how much empathy designers glean from researching user behavior and preferences, it can’t replace the benefits of having a piece of technology built by people who actually use it.

    • Kristen Shinohara is Assistant Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology
    • Garreth Tigwell is Assistant Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology
    • This article first appeared on The Conversation

    Header image: Eren Li from Pexels

    development disabilities featured technology The Conversation
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Tumblr Email
    The Conversation

      Related Posts

      YouTube replay

      YouTube’s new ‘most replayed’ feature will let viewers skip straight to the popular bits

      May 19, 2022
      Eye Test main

      Your driver’s license eye test can soon be done at any optometrist, pending a government deal

      May 19, 2022
      Digital Rand

      South Africa’s digital Rand is inbound, crypto asset regulation may begin by early 2023

      May 19, 2022

      Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

      In The Mag
      Stuff April-May 2022 Latest Issue

      In This Issue – The Smart Home (April-May 2022) Issue

      By Brett VenterApril 4, 20220

      It’s time for a brand-new issue of your favourite tech publication. The April-May- 2022 edition…

      2021 Wish List
      wish list Stuff Wish List 2021

      Stuff Wish List: for the tech impaired

      By Duncan PikeDecember 22, 20210

      Are you from the time before being glued to a smartphone was considered normal? Here’s…

      Wishlist DIY Stuff tech

      Stuff Wish List: for the DIY Diehard

      December 21, 2021
      Wish List Gearhead

      Stuff Wish List: For the petrol-soaked gearhead

      December 20, 2021
      outsiders

      Stuff Wish List: for the Outsiders

      December 17, 2021

      Latest Video

      Sonos

      SONOS Roam SL unboxing by Toby Shapshak

      March 30, 2022
      Mini Cooper

      The Mini Cooper SE Electric with Toby Shapshak

      March 18, 2022
      MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbox Six Extraction Edition unboxing

      MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbox Six Extraction Edition unboxing

      March 16, 2022
      Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Unboxing

      Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra unboxing with Toby Shapshak

      March 16, 2022
      Contact

      South Africa's Consumer Tech News Hub

      General: [email protected]
      Subscriptions: [email protected] or 087 353 1291
      Editorial: 072 735 2614
      Sales: 083 375 2418

      Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube SoundCloud

      Subscribe to Updates

      • Terms and Conditions
      • Privacy & POPI
      • My account
      © 2022 Stuff Group. Designed by Chronon.

      Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.