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Web Posted on: January 4, 1999
| CSUN 99 Papers |

Corporate Responsibility for Adaptive Technology
Jim Fruchterman
Arkenstone, Inc.


Introduction
The need to access computers has become one of the primary civil rights
issues facing people with disabilities. The impact of the computer on
education, employment and personal time has been enormous and continues to
grow. Disability advocates now recognize that access to computers and the
World Wide Web is critical to the quality of life for people with
disabilities.

The suppliers of computer software and hardware bear much of the
responsibility for this type of accessibility, and legislation over the
decade has firmed up the requirements. However, some corporations have
completely failed to meet these legal requirements, while some have far
exceeded their minimal obligations for access. It is important for the
disability community to express both condemnation and appreciation for the
appropriate firms, and remain active in advocating positive change.

The biggest player in this critical area is Microsoft. Just as it inspires
strong emotions in the general public, Microsoft has been at the center of
a great deal of controversy in the disability field. This paper will review
some of the issues and history surrounding Microsoft, and present some of
the key issues for the future. As a society, we're not sure what to do
about Microsoft's behavior in the commercial world. The same indecision
exists in the disability world. Because of Microsoft’s power and
willingness to use it against parties it perceives as not pro-Microsoft,
people are also very reluctant to speak out with criticism of Microsoft.

It is crucially important to examine these issues carefully. Points of view
other than Microsoft’s need to be heard. Technical, purchasing, legislative
and regulatory decisions need to be better informed. The issue of
Microsoft’s responsibilities is central in the debate over the
responsibility of manufacturers to provide accessible products and
technology.

What Disability Advocates Want
The ultimate objective of people with disabilities is easy to state: they
would like to be able to go to the same store as their nondisabled
compatriots, buy the same products at the same price, and have these
products work easily out of the box. This means that all products should
work for all people. Accessibility should be built into all products.

Since reality is very far from this ideal situation, people with
disabilities are suffering. Barriers created by inaccessible technology
keep disabled people from their full potential as individuals, whether it
is in the area of education, employment, or living independently. A
widespread effort has been underway for years to break down these barriers.
The primary tool in this effort has been legislation. The Americans with
Disabilities Act, the 1996 Telecommunications Act and the recent revisions
to Section 508 on Federal procurement standards all increase the
obligations of manufacturers, service providers, government agencies,
employers and educational institutions to provide better access. Still,
progress has been slower than many people with disabilities had hoped.

The Problem
The main problem with many computer products is that they are difficult or
impossible to use by people with disabilities. People with vision
impairments have an especially difficult time accessing the visual
interface that characterizes Microsoft Windows and the applications that
run under Windows.

Adaptive technology developers who care about the need to access this
information have traditionally gone in two directions: screen readers and
screen magnifiers that try to make the standard applications accessible and
custom applications that provide an environment designed specifically for
the person with a disability. Both types of solutions are important parts
of providing access, although the first group is especially dependent on
computer software companies to do their job.

Review of Different Corporations
Examining the track record of several different companies illustrates the
varied responses to the issue of accessibility. Since Microsoft is the
majority of the accessibility problem for people with disabilities, due to
their near-monopoly in operating systems and applications that are relevant
for employment, we'll explore Microsoft first and in greater depth. We'll
also briefly examine IBM, AOL/Netscape and Sun.

Microsoft's Track Record
"So you'll probably never accuse us of being altruistic. That's ok. We're
not." - Quotation from a 1998 Microsoft ad.

Nobody can say it better than Microsoft. Microsoft's interest in
accessibility has not been visibly driven by any sense of corporate
responsibility. Accessibility is an imposed requirement that has only been
taken seriously because of its potential impact on Microsoft's product
sales. It would be logical to assume that without continued pressure,
Microsoft will not continue to make significant accessibility efforts. A
review of the history of this issue and Microsoft is in order.

At first, Microsoft was reluctant to take the issue of access seriously.
Federal employees were worried about losing their jobs as agencies started
moving from DOS to Windows in the late 80s and early 90s. There was talk of
making complaints under Section 508, the law that stated that technology
acquired by the federal government had to be accessible, but which was
rarely enforced. Microsoft began to hear from disability advocates that
there was a problem, but Microsoft didn't regard it as Microsoft's problem.
After the completion of Windows 3.1, Microsoft assigned a senior developer
to the role of liaison for the disability community. It dodged efforts to
get it to do more to provide access, even though Microsoft was in the best
position to do something about making its products accessible. Because it
made the operating system, Microsoft also was in a position to make many of
the applications made by third parties more accessible. However,
Microsoft's original position was that access was the province of the small
accessibility industry.

Under the pressure of a threatened boycott of Microsoft products, Microsoft
relented and committed itself to improving access. It enlarged its staff
and begins to develop accessibility technology. The main effort is based on
a technology called Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA). MSAA would make
it easier to get access to the information on what's on the screen.
However, the solution was not strongly marketed to other commercial
software developers, and has had little impact on access for software other
than Microsoft's.

Although Microsoft made a stated commitment to MSAA, disability advocates
quickly found out that accessibility was relegated to an optional feature
for Microsoft products. After releasing Internet Explorer 3, the main
Internet browser from Microsoft, with MSAA, Microsoft then left it out of
Internet Explorer 4.0. This raised a storm of fury as blind users upgraded
to IE 4 and found it didn't work. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced
that with a crash effort that Microsoft's engineers manage to fix the IE 4
problem in 30 days. However, several months later, Microsoft's
Accessibility personnel admit that IE 4 is still unusable for MSAA.
Disability sources note that it took over nine months to get a fixed
version of IE4. Nobody tells the chairman, and Microsoft continues to
trumpet this amazing rescue to this day.

After the IE4 faux pas, Bill Gates elevated accessibility as a bigger
corporate priority and doubles the staff dedicated to accessibility.
However, shortly after the announcement of the doubling of staff, Microsoft
discontinues free technical support to the accessibility industry. Small
companies working on accessibility using MSAA would be given a limited
amount of subsidized technical support. Those accessibility companies who
are making custom products for the disabled under Windows were explicitly
excluded from this subsidized support. If you weren't directly signed up
for Microsoft's plan for access, you weren't going to get any help. The
problem was that these companies weren't doing enough to sell Microsoft
products: they were just trying to help people with disabilities.

Microsoft and the Small Accessibility Industry
Microsoft's relationship with the accessibility industry has been rocky.
For years, Microsoft transferred responsibility for access problems to
these vendors. Now that Microsoft is beginning to offer basic function
access tools, vendors are very concerned that Microsoft is going to put
them out of business. Because of Microsoft's monopoly position in operating
systems and major business applications, its actions have a huge impact on
the tiny vendors in the disability field.

Microsoft has a strong "Not Invented Here" syndrome, although often for
powerful business reasons. Almost any technology standard that is not
created by Microsoft is a potential threat to their business model. As we
have seen from press coverage of the various trials, Microsoft actively
tries to sabotage some of these competing technologies. Microsoft often
will offer a competing standard and defend it, whether or not it meets the
needs of the end consumers. Microsoft has tried to discourage the author's
organization from supporting Arkenstone's speech synthesizer interface
standard, SSIL, while not adding the functionality Arkenstone requested to
the new Microsoft standard, SAPI. Microsoft jokingly offered to pay
Arkenstone not to build a bridge between the standards to help SSIL users
take advantage of the SAPI technology.

A prominent developer of screen readers also notes that most of Microsoft's
work has been reinventing what he and his competitors have already
developed. He notes that it's easier to use Microsoft's free technology,
but he worries about depending on Microsoft for this core technology. Most
heads of accessibility companies are concerned about Microsoft taking over
their markets.

However, Microsoft’s road is a logical one in some respects. Almost all
accessibility vendors acknowledge that Microsoft should fix many of the
accessibility problems facing users today. The fact that Microsoft’s
progress has been too slow on building accessibility into its operating
systems and applications has increased the pressure on Microsoft to fix the
problem. However, if Microsoft puts many accessibility vendors out of
business, what will be the force keeping up the access technology?

Microsoft Success Stories
Microsoft's efforts have had some positive impact. Even though MSAA has not
turned out to be as beneficial as has been touted, Microsoft has been
making significant progress. Microsoft, even though it could be doing more
and better in accessibility, is doing more than almost all other technology
companies. Here is a list of positive Microsoft actions:


Built-in accessibility features in the operating systems
Involving the Disability Community in beta testing its products
Efforts for create a Braille display API for use by access applications
Public Relations promoting technology use by people with disabilities
Cost reducing features that are important to access, such as speech synthesis

Microsoft and the Future
Microsoft dedicates a great deal of its accessibility efforts to public
relations. Its Accessibility personnel act as punching bags for the
disability community, absorbing the anger and disappointment while
staunchly defending Microsoft's point of view both publicly and privately.

Make no doubt about it, Microsoft's growth is due in large part to its
single-minded dedication to commercial success. Microsoft's employees are
imbued with a corporate culture dedicated to this success. Accessibility is
important because it is now a requirement to continued commercial success.
If accessibility weren't a governmental requirement, it would not get the
attention it is now getting. This a reasonably cynical view, but I'm sure
that the majority of accessibility advocates have come to this conclusion
watching Microsoft's actions over the past ten years.

This point is important, because it has wide-reaching implications for the
future of accessibility involving Microsoft. As a commercial company,
Microsoft is always acting in Microsoft's interest, and rarely acts in the
interests of disabled people when it is not to Microsoft's advantage. This
issue mirrors the debate going on in our society about Microsoft: should
Microsoft's tactics be condemned in using every weapon in its power to
achieve dominance in its chosen field? Or should we let the market decide
all?

IBM
IBM's approach to accessibility and corporate responsibility has been very
different than Microsoft's. IBM has been a leader for many years in
developing access technology and supporting the accessibility industry. IBM
funded the development of its Screen Reader product for many years,
including making a version for OS/2 when IBM was competing with Windows in
the operating system arena. If OS/2 had won instead of Windows, access
would probably be much better to employment-related computer technology.
However, access has to follow the general market trends and OS/2 lost out
to Windows. IBM has also developed a significant number of dedicated access
products for people with different disabilities: IBM Home Page Reader for
accessing the Internet by blind people, Speech Viewer for helping speech
impaired children to learn how to talk, Thinkable for people with cognitive
issues and so on.

IBM has also made significant efforts in the Java area, often in
conjunction with Sun Microsystems, the inventor of Java. Lotus Software,
formerly with a poor access track record, has made significant strides
since coming under the IBM corporate umbrella.

In addition to developing its own products, IBM has actively supported
technically and financially accessibility developers, such as Don Johnston,
Cognitive Concepts and the author's nonprofit, Arkenstone. By doing so, IBM
has helped bring out accessibility products for disabled consumer groups
that might not otherwise been available. IBM's voice recognition and voice
synthesis products are also widely used in the disability field.

AOL/Netscape
AOL and Netscape, soon to merge, are both terrific examples of companies
with terrible records of working on accessibility. This cannot be
considered accidental, since they both have been made well aware of their
failure to make progress on access.

Sun
Sun has been making a significant effort to make Java accessible, and
contrasted to Microsoft, has made this effort earlier in the Java's life
cycle. Whether this will make much of an impact on accessibility depends on
the broader success of Java and the implications of Sun's recent court
victory against Microsoft over Java.

Political/Regulatory/Technical Issues
There are many mechanisms for addressing the issues of encouraging
Microsoft and other manufacturers to do a better job in accessibility. The
first is to insist that the existing laws and regulations be enforced.

The new Section 508 governing Federal procurement allows individuals to sue
the federal government to enforce its obligation to purchase only
accessible electronic and information technology. During late 1998 and
1999, the Access Board is busy drafting regulations and standards to
enforce this new law. The first step in this process has been the formation
of the Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee
("EITAAC"). The public can participate on many levels in this process, from
subscribing to the EITAAC listserv to participating in subcommittee
deliberations to attending the public hearings in Washington, D.C. The
federal government will use its procurement power to decline to purchase
products that are not accessible.

Another mechanism to work for change is to participate in the passage of
new legislation. A handful of states have passed toughened accessibility
laws and more states are considering these.

Recommendations and Conclusions
Microsoft has an obligation to do more. Legislation and its monopolies
create both a legal and moral obligation to help disabled Americans. Not
just with public relations and private apologies, but with measurable
progress towards the usability of Microsoft's products by people with
disabilities. Here are some specific suggestions for Microsoft:


Support training of people with disabilities much more strongly
Training is the number one issue for people with disabilities. In addition
to learning the standard applications, they must also use accessibility
tools. Microsoft needs to take responsibility to see that disabled people
are successful in the use of Microsoft products, not to stop short because
its MSAA efforts have made this success theoretically better. Microsoft has
funded efforts to train seniors on PCs, and disabled people deserve the
same support.

Actively support the integration of people with disabilities into the
workforce
Microsoft has begun to make progress in this area, with national TV ads
that feature a blind Microsoft employee. Microsoft also has to go further,
ensuring that its professional training courses and products are
accessible, so that disabled people have the opportunity for professional
positions.

Have an ombudsman and independent review committee
Microsoft's progress with access needs to be independently tracked by
people who can strike a better balance between Microsoft's interests and
the interests of consumers.

Take real responsibility for results and publicly commit to timetables for
those results
The quality of access to Windows and Microsoft applications is still lousy.
Microsoft needs to avoid backtracking on access. Access can't be sacrificed
again for commercial reasons.

Actively support disability access and the access industry
Microsoft needs to end the policies and attitudes that generate so much
hostility between it and the accessibility industry. This does not move the
cause of accessibility forward.

Disability advocates need to step up the pressure on the many companies
that have made no efforts whatsoever to meet their disability access
obligations. Although Microsoft represents the biggest accessibility
barriers, the fact that Windows is at least partially accessible has taken
the heat off of many other companies. Testing of product releases for
accessibility should become a standard part of the release process for
major software packages and services, such as Web sites. Accessibility is
too important to too many people to have it be ignored.


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