April 19, 2000
Designers told: Adapt computers for disabled
By William Glanz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

     Chris McMillan does not let his partial blindness stop him
from from hopping on the Internet.
     The 32-year-old systems engineer at Alva Access Group Inc.,
which develops software to read text on Web pages, has six
computers in his West Haven, Conn., home and uses software that
speaks, reading text to him.
     Others aren't so lucky.
     The digital divide - a term normally used to describe the
barrier preventing minorities and the poor from having access to
technology - can also separate the visually and physically
impaired from the computer age, Mr. McMillan said.
     President Clinton has spent the week traveling around the
country to shed light on the disparity in computer access between
the nation's wealthy and underprivileged.
     But Americans with disabilities also face barriers
preventing access, due in part to the fact that many technology
tools aren't designed so people with disabilities can use the
equipment, said people attending yesterday's federal government
information technology trade show at the Washington Convention
Center.
     "If you don't have the tools to do your job," Mr. McMillan
said, "how are you going to stay employed?"
     Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday urged the technology
industry to make design changes to hardware and develop software
to accommodate the 30 million Americans with significant
disabilities.
     Those changes could increase the number of people with
physical or visual disabilities in the work force.
     "The employment rate of people with disabilities has not
kept pace with improvements in technology. Seventy-five percent
of the 30 million adults with significant disabilities are
underemployed or unemployed," Miss Reno said at the trade show.
     Even while companies like Mr. McMillan's Alva Access Group
and St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Henter-Joyce Inc. are making
screen readers to help the visually impaired "read" Web pages,
other barriers exist that keep the disabled from being able to
perform some jobs, the attorney general said.
     The culprits include printers and fax machines with screens
that can't be read by people in wheelchairs because screens are
placed on top of the devices.
     Barriers exist outside the workplace, too. Common objects
like automated teller machines present difficulties for the
disabled and also need to be designed better, said Craig B.
Luigart, chief information officer for the U.S. Department of
Education who suffers from the neurological disease primary
lateral sclerosis.
     Mr. McMillan and others are hoping an amendment to the
Rehabilitation Act will help move people with physical and visual
impairments into the work force. The amendment, due to take
effect in August, will require federal agencies to improve access
for workers and the public to government technology and
electronic information. Web pages will have to be equipped with
software that reads text to users.
     Changes to other commonly used equipment are likely to occur
as America's baby boomers age and more people suffer from
functional disabilities brought on by aging, Mr. Luigart said.
     "Disabilities are a transparent issue. Most people don't
think about them, and I don't think at anytime that anyone has
intentionally designed things so people with disabilities
couldn't use them. But with the graying of America, I think we
will see more awareness of the issue," Mr. Luigart said.
     In addition to raising awareness about the need for
equipment that is accessible to physically and visually impaired
people, employers also must be made aware that people with
disabilities are ready and willing to work, said Matt Ater,
director of assistive technology at the District-based Columbia
Lighthouse For the Blind, which provides worker training for the
visually impaired.
     "If employers understand blind people can work, they will
hire them," Mr. Ater said.


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