InfoWorld
October 26, 1998 - page 103

Ensuring accessibility

IT can help disabled users escape technology's constraints
By David Raths
(David Raths is a free-lance writer based in Portland, OR)

When Harry Stathos, chief financial officer at Northwest Permanente, in
Portland, OR, 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 stay 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 with 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 states 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."  

-----

Starting points online

IT managers searching for information about assistive technology can start
with these online resources. 

Assistive Technology On-Line
http://www.asel.udel.edu/at-online/assistive.html 
This Web database was created by the Applied Science and Engineering
Laboratories at the University of Delaware. 

Center for Information Technology Accommodation
http://www.itpolicy.gsa.gov/cita/index.htm
Established in l984 by the General Services Administration, the center is
nationally recognized as a model for instituting accessible information
environments, services, and management practices. 

Job Accommodation Network
http://janweb.icdi.wvu.edu/english/homeus.htm
This International toll-free consulting service provides information about
job accommodations and employing people with functional limitations. 

Trace Research and Development Center
http://trace.wisc.edu
This resource center about technology and disability is part of the
Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

WebAble
http://www.yuri.org/webable/index.html 
This directory, a project of the Rubinsky Insight Foundation, lists
hundreds of Internet-based resources about accessibility. 

-----

San Jose offers model for accessible web pages

The World Wide Web has done wonders to publicize resources and standards
efforts in the disability community, But the Web has become one of the
community's greatest challenges as well, Blind people who use screen readers
can't access information unless it is presented in an accessible format. 

"Only about 2 percent of Web sites are currently completely accessible," says
Debbie Cook, project director at the Washington Assistive Technology
Alliance, in Seattle. 

Efforts are under way to define standards for designing accessible Web sites.
The basic rule is to provide HTML code that can be read by text-only browsers
and screen readers, or to provide alternate text and descriptions. 

One municipality that has received accolades for its user-friendly site is
the city of San Jose, CA. San Jose's Webmasters are expected to adhere to the
following design standards. 

    All Web pages support text browsers or have an alternative text page.  

    If a document is posted in Portable Document Format, then a second
    version is also posted in ASCII or text HTML. 

    Every graphic image has an "Alt" tag with a short description of that
    graphic image. 

    Photographs are linked by a selectable hyperlink to a description of the
    photograph. 

    All audio and video clips have text transcriptions or descriptions. 

    An alternate mechanism for online forms is provided. 

    The use of frames and tables is avoided. 

For Webmasters wondering how their sites stack up, the Center for Special
Technology, in Peabody, MA, has developed a tool called Bobby that analyzes
Web pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities
(http://www.cast.org/bobby).

