Yesterday, I posted about the new design for a tactile interface for the iPhone. While getting my thoughts together to write the post, I read and responded to the comments on Yanko Design article where I first read about this iPhone case. Some of the comments were, in my opinion, insensitive on the issue of product accessibility. Foolishly, I responded and let myself become embroiled in a debate on how accessibility products should be. I would like to share some excerpts from the comments so far.

From the second comment:

First thought that came to my mind: “What’s the use of an iPhone to a visually impaired person. It’s only about the looks anyway.”

Enough said on this.The next is from someone with whom I wholeheartedly agree:

I think a lot of people underestimate the ‘fashion’ aspects of devices for the visually impaired (VI). VI users still upgrade their phone every year, its about having the most up to date technology just like everyone else. (…) The reason you see VI users struggling with “talks” software on a modern mobile phone is because the offerings from organisations such as the RNIB are horrible pieces of design, which have the same usability issues as any other phone but also look childish and restrict the functionality.

Me, too. Next:

Why is there a camera?

Why is there a Blind Photographers group on Flickr? Now for some intelligent comments:

Whoever says that the iPhone is only about eye candy is the real blind. The iPhone’s surfaces are covered with interaction sensors, but so far their exploitation has been mostly software-based and tied to the visual UI. Finally someone tries putting the display aside and re-thinks the physical interactions using those sensors, creating a new paradigm. The idea can be applied to any usage scenario requiring / benefiting from tactile signage over the touch sensor. Think sheaths with different keypad configurations focusing on different features or functionalities based on the user’s particular needs. This might just be the killer mobile platform for the visually impaired.

Next:

This is a nice innovation.This could modify for some essential gadgets or other tools .. but for iPhone. Charm of iPhone is its GUI, its user experience. A simple and basic question arises “is there any use of iPhone to a visually impaired person?” A simple gadget supporting telephony and messaging can be handy instead of this.

Are all VI users profoundly blind? Who is going to build this wonderful VI-oriented device? Now for my first mistake:

First, most VI users have some functional vision (like me), so can use to the iPhone to some extent right out of the box. But some features are out of reach, so a tactile and/or audio interface laid on top of the nice visual GUI would only complement what the iPhone already has to offer. Second, have you seen the crap that gets sold as VI-friendly stuff? Saying that VI users should be satisfied with dedicated devices is like saying blacks should have been satisfied with segregation. ‘Separate but equal’ went out with the sixties! Third, many accessibility changes and features would not involve any serious redesign or cause any impact to non-VI users. So what do you care? Stop whining! Get your pupils dilated and trying living that way for a week.

The response:

You cannot equate being blind to being black because being blind does in fact have physical limitations. (…) These changes you say would be “so easy” to make, may not in fact be. (…) If the cost involved in developing these additional features is not cost-effective, then it’s asinine to expect a company to bow to your whims and take a loss just because you think their product should cater to everyone under the sun.

My second mistake:

First, I was not equating being disabled with being black. I was making a comparison, which is quite different and both appropriate and apropos, between the more widespread and serious de jure segregation by race and the less serious, but still consequential, de facto segregation by health status. I would like someone (society? the government) encourage designers to think about building accessibility into their from the start, when it is less costly, then when the factories are built, when it is too late. Second, a proper understanding of economics leads to two further errors in your comment. First, the profit motive is not the only thing at play in the economy. When the market fails to deliver what society wishes, the government has often intervened to change the rules. Sometimes this happens for the good. The Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the abolition of slavery are some obvious examples. History is jammed with examples of the reverse, no argument here. But there are ways for the government to step in and nudge the economy to do the right thing. I could write a book about the policy options the government could take to improve the lives of the disabled without over-burdening the economy. Second, this product design which prompted our discussion is an example of how capitalism fills holes in the market. There is an obvious market for more accessible products which Apple and others are not filling. (You try using only VI-friendly products for a week!) This design is part of the way the markets evolve to meet unmet consumer needs. The amount of VI people is beginning to explode with the graying of the baby boomers. Like the US automakers decades-late entry into the hybrid market (go capitalism here), tech designers are only now realizing that there is huge market that they have been ignoring. Now, they need to redesign, possibly from scratch, products that could have had accessibility built into them from the start at a much lower cost.

The response:

Well I’m glad YOU would find this useful. And please tell me how this has anything to do with segregation? I could not even keep a straight face when I read that. More people assuming everything MUST accommodate everyone. The braille on drive through ATMs makes more sense to me than this product. As I’ve said before I love the iPhone for being able to accommodate a lot of things, but this is like someone buying a laptop for the calculator application. Again, I’m glad you would benefit from such a thing, but looking at the larger (non-selfish) picture, MORE people would benefit from a greatly re-designed VI phone. You know, kind of like Apple spending millions of dollars developing this phone for people with sight. You even admit there are “easy” things that can be done to make it better for you. So e-mail Apple about their ignorance and insensitivity, I don’t need to hear about it I have a blind grandmother. (I bet Apple would sell this though, looks like it’s easy money.)

My latest mistake:

Are there things that your grandmother can not do or places she can not go due to her sight that you can with yours? That may not be legal, intentional segregation, but it is de facto, institutional segregation. I am not arguing that the disability experience is the same and the challenges currently and historically faced by the African-American community. But America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, equal opportunity (not necessarily outcome). When someone’s opportunities are limited through no action of theirs, is there no moral responsibility on the part of those more fortunate to lend a hand? Do you not help your grandmother? Should she not have a right to access the same things everyone else does? Why do think that your local town offers her transportation? Do you think that your grandmother ought to be confined to her house? Obviously not (I hope). As for being selfish, wanting this product for myself and believing that more thought about building accessibility into everyday products should be required are entirely different things. If it were just for me, then I would not care so much. But there is a huge community of underserved VI folks out there who deserve more respect. That goes for more than just the VI and more than just the disabled.

Am I off my rocker either for getting involved or for my ideas? Is it selfish to want more accessibility built into everyday products? Am I crazy to call the implications of the limitations imposed by disability de facto segragation? Why do I even get involved?

Tags: accessibility, apple, iphone, iPod, rant

This entry was posted on December 3, 2008 at 6:07 pm and is filed under large print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.