Facebook taps artificial intelligence for users with disabilities

Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY

March 23, 2016



MENLO PARK, Calif. — Matt King, a software engineer who has been blind
since college, came to Facebook last summer with a mission: to make
websites and mobile apps friendlier for people like him with disabilities.



King, 50, uses screen-reader software that turns Web pages and documents
into synthesized speech. The challenge he confronts every day: As many as
half of websites are nearly impossible for him to browse.



"There are not many products out there where you can say — actually it's
hard to name any — that the experience of using them as a person with a
disability is as good as it would be if you didn't have a disability," says
King who is part of a team at Facebook that focuses on accessibility, such
as providing closed captions for videos and keyboard shortcuts for people
who can't use a computer mouse.



Accessibility is a major problem that looms larger as the world's
population grows and ages and as more of everyday life — applying for
college or jobs, making a major purchase, getting health information —
happens online.



Websites are too seldom built with people with disabilities in mind. But
increasingly, tech giants from Microsoft to Yahoo are focusing on making
technology more accessible to everyone.



A major push is underway to add accessibility curriculum to computer
science programs and to educate software developers on how to build sites
and apps that don't shut out people with disabilities, whether they use
screen readers, mouth-controlled joysticks, closed captioning or
eye-tracking technology.



"There is certainly more of an interest in just the last five years from
these big companies in Silicon Valley," said Geoff Freed, director of
technology projects and Web media standards for the WGBH National Center
for Accessible Media.



It's also a hot topic at the 31st Annual International Technology and
Persons with Disabilities Conference being held in San Diego this week.



'SEE' A FACEBOOK PHOTO WITH CAPTIONS



Facebook is re-engineering its website and mobile apps, and it's
brainstorming a new generation of futuristic products that harness the
power of artificial intelligence to improve the experience of Facebook for
people with disabilities.



The first is an automated captioning tool launching in April that will help
the visually impaired "see" a photo on Facebook by describing what's in it.



The ever-quickening torrent of photographs and videos flooding Facebook
presents a big challenge for the visually impaired. King says he gleans
clues from the captions and comments, but "you really feel excluded when
you can't see the picture."



Even small bits of information can be helpful, King says. When a friend
uploads a new profile picture without a caption, the tool tells him there
is a person smiling in the photo. When a friend uploads a photo from her
phone, it says: "Image may contain: two people, one toddler, smiling,
outdoors."



"These are our very first baby steps," he says. In time, Facebook hopes to
provide a much fuller automated description of photographs and then videos.
"It's really the idea that we are including everybody in the conversation,"
he says.



ONE BILLION PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES



Tech companies aren’t focusing on disability access simply out of altruism.
Dependent on growth, they can’t afford to overlook large swaths of the
population. In the United States, one out of every five adults has a
disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some 15% of the world's population, an estimated 1 billion people, have
disabilities.



Another factor: legal risk. Courts are divided on whether websites and
mobile apps are legally required to provide equal access to people with
disabilities under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which was
enacted before the Internet became as ubiquitous as it is today. But
advocates are increasingly filing lawsuits, claiming companies have a legal
obligation to make their websites as accessible as a retail store, movie
theater or restaurant.



The Department of Justice delayed a plan to issue accessibility regulations
until 2018, but in November said: "The inability to access websites put
individuals at a great disadvantage in today's society, which is driven by
a dynamic electronic marketplace and unprecedented access to information."



Online barriers can translate into higher prices if the lowest price is
available on an inaccessible website. People with disabilities can't apply
for jobs if the application is only available on a website that isn't
accessible.



“If you can't get equal access, it will negatively impact your economic
status, your privacy, your social life, your independence, even your
safety," said Jonathan Lazar, a computer science professor at Towson
University in Maryland.



INTERNET BRINGS ADVANCES, OBSTACLES



DeAnn Elliott, a Boston disability advocate, was diagnosed at 28 with
retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that causes gradual retinal
degeneration, and declared legally blind at 41.



The Web has opened up many opportunities for people with vision loss, she
says. Recent technological advances, such as Apple's VoiceOver, a
gesture-based screen reader that reads a description of everything
happening on an iOS device, have turned smartphones into indispensable aids.



Yet too much of the Internet remains tantalizingly beyond her reach. Among
the most common obstacles: "captchas," a security feature that requires
users to retype numbers or letters. Audio captchas are often
unintelligible, Elliott says.



"It's terribly frustrating," Elliott said. "We pay for the same service
from our Internet providers as our neighbors but for a fraction of the
functionality."



That lack of functionality is an unnecessary barrier to online access,
advocates say. Many websites, such as those run by government, libraries
and museums, are required to be accessible.



Making technology accessible benefits everyone, says Daniel Goldstein,
counsel for the National Federation of the Blind. Think curb cuts and
wheelchair ramps for strollers, captions for television broadcasts in noisy
bars or the software used to create e-books.



"What's needed are things like: 'It is the policy of our company to build
accessibility in from the beginning of the design process,' " Goldstein
said.



Facebook is seeking to embed that kind of awareness in its corporate
culture.



FACEBOOK 'EMPATHY LAB'



Steps from his desk in Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters is an
"empathy lab," a row of devices that browse the social network using
keyboard shortcuts, braille or the sound of a human voice. The devices are
strategically placed along a busy walkway to remind engineers to build —
or, in Facebook speak, hack — accessibility into all products.



That is King's life work. He was born with retinitis pigmentosa and
considered legally blind, though as a child he was able to ride a bike and
hold down a route delivering newspapers. While studying electrical
engineering and music at the University of Notre Dame, King lost his sight
completely, but never his drive. He began tinkering with screen readers to
improve the technology. At IBM, he championed equal access for people with
disabilities. He's also a three-time Paralympian, one of the world's top
tandem cyclists and a classical pipe organist.



King makes good use of assistive technology. While most software engineers
have large monitors on their desks, King has a sound mixing board like
those used by a recording engineer or a professional DJ. The mixer lets him
control the volume of the screen reader and other audio coming from three
laptops — two PCs and a MacBook — and two phones — one iPhone, one Android
— using the mic on his stereo headset so he can listen to a phone call in
one ear and the screen reader in the other.



King was recruited from IBM by Jeff Wieland, who started Facebook's
accessibility team five years ago. King, who navigates the sprawling campus
with a white cane, says he was taken with Facebook's mission to connect
every person on the planet.



"I don't think there is any other company in the world where accessibility
is that core to the mission, where it's impossible to accomplish the
mission without making accessibility great," he says.



Using Facebook was a frustrating experience for people with vision loss
when King signed up for it in 2009. The social network was riddled with
buttons and graphics that were not labeled so he had no idea what they were
for. "It took me several hours to do what would have taken someone else 15
or 20 minutes," he recalls.



Today, King can skim his news feed as quickly as a sighted person. King
predicts artificial intelligence will power even greater advances for
people with disabilities.



"This is a problem," he says, "that as machines get smarter, that machines
can solve."



http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/03/23/facebook-accessibility-people-with-disabilities/82026554/


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