InfoWorld, October 26, 1998
Ensuring accessibility
IT can help disabled users escape technology's constraints
By David Raths
When Harry Stathos, chief financial officer at Northwest Permanente, in
Portland, Ore., suffered a stroke that left him temporarily unable to
read, his employer paid $4,000 for a scanner and two pieces of software
that read documents and his e-mail to him.
"It made me functional and got me back to work faster than my doctors ever
imagined," Stathos says. Although he researched the system himself, he
credits the IT staff at Northwest Permanente, the regional medical arm of
Kaiser Permanente, for their patience and interest in helping him to
purchase and install the software.
"Without them, it would not have gotten installed," Stathos says.
Such accommodations stem from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),
which was passed nearly 10 years ago and requires offices with more than
15 employees to provide workers "reasonable accommodation" for their
disability unless it would cause an undue hardship or be disruptive to the
business.
Yet many IT managers are unaware of how their buying decisions and system
designs affect current and potential employees, according to assistive
technology specialists. For instance, if a company has standardized on a
Windows-based suite of applications that doesn't offer keyboard-equivalent
commands, catering to many disabled workers becomes difficult.
"The real issue of accommodation is often tied to whether the initial
system can be made accessible in the first place," says Debbie Cook,
project director at Seattle-based Washington Assistive Technology
Alliance.
When the issue has not been considered in advance, companies may
eventually need to perform inefficient and inexpensive retrofits of
systems based on individual requests.
Alan Cantor, principal of Cantor & Associates, a workplace accommodation
consultancy in Toronto, recently worked with an employee unable to use a
mouse. Her job required her to use seven different applications, only two
of which were fully accessible from her keyboard.
"[Because of] the lack of a few access keys, this woman was not able to do
her job, and there was clearly no mandate on the employer's part to make
sure its software was accessible," Cantor says.
DEDICATED TEAMS. Organizations that are successful at making technology
accessible often have specialized teams, either within IT or working
closely with the department.
The U.S. Department of Education, in Washington, has a team within its
90-person information resources group dedicated to assistive technology.
The four-person group of computer technicians responds to the needs of
contractors, disabled employees, and their managers.
"A specialized team that knows the nuts and bolts of assistive technology
makes all the difference," says Don Barrett, an assistive technology
specialist at the department. "Retrofitting systems is a really expensive
proposition. When you have an ongoing awareness, you're able to address it
in the development stage."
Officials in Maine learned the same lesson a few years ago when they were
standardizing on a Lotus application suite. They realized that a blind
employee at the state Department of Labor couldn't use the software. In
response, the state waived the standard and found suitable software for
that employee. That case was the impetus for a process of identifying and
solving accessibility issues.
"It was decided that we needed to attack this at the purchasing level,"
says Floyd White, a database analyst at the Maine Bureau of Information
Services, who heads the state's Information Systems Managers Group task
force on accessibility and is also visually impaired. "We are making
progress with vendors, as well as in-house developers."
But building awareness among IT managers has been a struggle, White says.
The most problematic issue is that software is still being purchased and
installed that disabled employees need to use, yet there is no way to
access it without a mouse. To get his message across, White tells IT
managers to try to use the application without a mouse.
And White says disabled state employees don't yet have a clear system for
addressing accessibility issues.
"It's a free-for-all," White says. "It becomes a cooperative effort that
includes network services and desktop-support services, but there is
nothing structured in place to help you find the right people."
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE. Examples of systematic thinking about accommodation
are easier to find in the public sector than in private companies.
But this may change. In the next two years, federal standards will be
established regarding information products used by companies that contract
with the government, requiring more vendors and grant-seekers to make sure
products and data are accessible.
"I think we're also likely to see more lawsuits, which is unfortunate
because it is so avoidable and it's not the way these problems should be
solved," says the Washington Assistive Technology Alliance's Cook.
Despite her fear that more disputes will end up in court, Cook thinks that
attitudes are starting to change.
"I use the building analogy," Cook says. "We've come to accept that
buildings will be designed with wheelchair accessibility. The same thing
should hold true for information technology."
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