What Can We Do To Make Technology Equally Accessible To All?

Technology refers to the use of tools, machines and techniques to make our work easier and more productive. The development of the human race wouldn’t have been possible without rapid advancements in technology. When technology becomes accessible, each user is able to interact with a device in ways that work best for him or her. This includes the extent to which a product, service, or environment is available and navigable for the user.

Acessible technology plays an important role in the inclusion of disabled students, both educationally and socially, promoting tolerance, acceptance and equality. Technology is also incorporated in all aspects of culture including travel, food, government, and art which allows different cultures to intermix and promote communal harmony. Features like text-to-speech, screen readers that allow people to read the screen with synthesized speech or braille, apps like YouTube and Facebook that allow the mass to connect are all examples of accessible technology.

When we wish to make technology equally accessible to all, we have to understand what makes them inaccessible in the first place. This includes the problems faced by the elderly in accessibility preventing their inclusion and participation in the Information Society. Although many techniques have been developed to help seniors, including accessibility issues in Web development, many web systems remain inaccessible by older users. Setting up cyber cafes and providing workshops primarily for older users may be an important step forward to make technology accessible.

Another issue is the need to provide accessible gaming. Game packaging gives no indication of accessibility features. For many disabled gamers, the odds of selecting a playable game are daunting and often not in their favor. The number of people interested in gaming transcends age, gender, income, and disability. Hence, we first need to examine the size and scope of accessibility before launching any game.

Banks were always regarded as places with long queues and an unmanageable amount of paper work before technological advancements took place in the banking sector. However, some people still find themselves being challenged by an ATM machine with a touch screen device due to the lack of proper guidance. For instance, if ATMs would just say something like ‘Hello this is a tap screen, please touch it’ for persons entering the ATM booth, it would have been better.

Common complaints regarding schooling range from inadequate access to computers and digital technology. Modern students must use modern technologies to compete with the global world and schools should allow children to creatively solve problems, complete projects and homework in their PCs. By implementation of accessible technology in the classroom like smart board, projectors and computers, teachers also enable students to improve their technical and job skills.

The software companies should connect with users more efficiently and conduct surveys to help us chip away accessibility issues. Accessibility must never be an afterthought, it must be considered about right at the beginning of any product development cycle. Beta testing can also help developers answer the question of the amount of accessibility offered by a certain software technology.