The Future of Accessible Technology

Technology advancements have a mixed track record for access by people with disabilities. Many advances have made it possible for people with disabilities to find employment, whereas others have made it harder for some people with disabilities to use computers. Although assistive technology products have followed these technology advances to provide access where it would otherwise be impossible and to make it possible for people with disabilities to be productive in a business setting, they often require reverse engineering to develop and thus lag behind the technology products that they supplement. Currently, software and hardware manufacturers must work together to provide the necessary information required for the specialized interfaces needed to meet the needs of people with disabilities, such as text-to-speech and speech description of the graphical user interface (GUI).

• Trends and Expectations
• Intelligent Flexibility and Personalization with Microsoft .NET
• Flexible Computer Interactions
• Natural Language and Speech Recognition
• Seamless Customization
• Improved User Experience for Assistive Technology
• Communicate and Collaborate Worldwide: Language Conversion
• Managing Data: Intuitive Access to Information
• Accessing and Managing Appliances with Universal Plug and Play
• The Workplace of Tomorrow
• Accessible Technology Becomes Mainstream

Today, we are on the precipice of revolutionary change in technology. Computer users are demanding computer user interfaces that are not only easier to use, but also more flexible and easily customized. They feel that using a computer is more difficult than it should be. As our population ages, these consumer demands will increase. Computer users also want remote intelligent access from any location. Most importantly, consumers want to choose how they interact with computers. The research and development that is being done to make these changes build on lessons learned when assistive technology first had to meet some of these very same needs. If the technology changes of the next decade maintain these common goals, they will offer significantly improved productivity and increased flexibility for all computer users, especially those with disabilities. They also offer the promise of opening up the power of computer usage to a broader range of people with and without disabilities.

Although it can be difficult to accurately predict the future, we can look at today's research and development projects as indications of where technology is headed. You can anticipate that some of these expectations will be replaced by even greater advancements that are unheard of today.

To look at this exciting future, this chapter will explore:

• The trends that provide a glimpse at the technology of the future
• Our view of what the workplace of tomorrow will look like
• How accessible technology will become mainstream in the future

Trends and Expectations

Current research and development projects at Microsoft and other software companies reveal two key themes of future technology: flexibility and customization. Computer interfaces are evolving to adapt to the way that humans interact, think, and organize information. Not only are individuals different in the ways they interact, think, and organize information, but they are also different depending on their environment. For example, an individual using a computer in a quiet office has different preferences than the same individual using a computer in a noisy airport terminal. Seamless customization and flexibility will allow an individual to specify using speech in a quiet office and using a mouse and keyboard when the ambient noise level is above a specified threshold.

Both flexibility and customization are important for everyone, but they are especially important for people with disabilities because they are a critical component of accessible technology.

Although there are many research and development projects going on today, we'll focus on four trends and expectations where we see that flexibility and customization will play pivotal roles in technology. All these trends have the potential to improve productivity for everyone. However, as you'll see, the access potential for people with disabilities is significant.

Intelligent Flexibility and Personalization with Microsoft .NET

By now you have probably heard about the Microsoft .NET platform, the Microsoft strategy to make information available any time, any place, on any device, but you might not know how it will impact your business. Microsoft .NET will provide a collection of Web-based services and technologies that work together to deliver on this strategy. Some of these services and technologies are already available, whereas others are being developed. Although there are many components of Microsoft .NET, we have chosen to discuss those most likely to have an impact on improving the ability of people with disabilities to use computers in a business environment. These include:

• Infrastructure and tools that promote flexible computer interactions
• Natural language and speech recognition
• Built-in seamless customization that follows a computer user wherever he or she goes
• The possibilities for an improved user experience for assistive technology

The driving force behind Microsoft .NET is a shift in focus from individual Web sites or devices to new constellations of computers, devices, and services that work together to deliver broader, richer solutions. Using applications built on these services and technologies, people will have control over how, when, and what information is delivered to them. Computers, devices, and services will be able to collaborate directly with each other, and businesses will be able to offer their products and services in a way that lets customers embed them in their own computer environment.

To get a sense of the opportunities that Microsoft .NET will provide business computer users, let's look at today's situation:

• The mechanisms by which people can interact with computers are limited—generally to a keyboard and mouse for input, and a monitor for output—unless the person is using specialized assistive technology.
• User information is principally a local phenomenon. If you log on to your Internet service provider or your company's network from a different computer, your preferences, data, and applications are not accessible.
• Users must directly act on information rather than setting intelligent preferences that automatically act on the user's behalf.

Microsoft .NET promises to address these deficiences by providing a framework and infrastructure so that the platform and applications built on the platform are easy to use anywhere by anyone. As part of future Microsoft .NET client platforms, Microsoft is building a robust user interface infrastructure and implementation tools that will take technology—including accessible technology—to the next level of intelligent user interactions.

If an application is built using the implementation tools that take advantage of the .NET client infrastructure, it will work seamlessly with assistive technology products without any additional programming. Likewise, assistive technology products using the infrastructure will gain access to countless applications with no additional work. Today, assistive technology manufacturers have to update their products for them to work with new applications and updates of existing applications. This increases the total cost of ownership for a business by requiring more frequent upgrades and additional integration effort. Therefore, Microsoft .NET will eventually lower the total cost of ownership for businesses using assistive technology products.

In addition, if your IT developers use the future Microsoft .NET implementation tools to build your business applications, they will automatically take advantage of these capabilities. This means that your business applications will work for all your employees and customers, even when their individual needs are different. This is a substantial benefit for already strapped IT departments and removes the need for customizing each individual's access requirements. Instead, individuals will be able to easily access the applications as they choose, without requiring any additional work by the IT developers.

Flexible Computer Interactions

Microsoft .NET will allow computer users to choose their preferred way to provide, or input, information to their computer and to receive, or output, information from their computer. These techniques include speech, handwriting, specialized input devices such as a single button switch, and a traditional keyboard or mouse.

For example, using built-in customization capabilities, a computer user could choose keyboard and handwriting as input preferences, allowing her to navigate applications with her keyboard and add text to documents with handwriting. She might also choose to direct her computer to tell her what it is doing and what choices she can make by actually talking to her and reading the content of her selected documents aloud. Likewise, her colleague could choose a specialized switch device for navigating and entering data and a visual display and text for navigational choices and document content. In both cases, the choices will be easy to make and will work for the operating system and all applications.

Natural Language and Speech Recognition

Today, in order to input information to a computer, a computer user must follow specific steps and make structured choices so that the computer understands what the user intends. This is true even when the computer user is using voice recognition assistive technology. So, for example, if a manager wants to schedule an appointment with an employee, she needs to navigate through a series of menus in a specific order to set the appointment in her calendar application. This might be done with a mouse, keyboard, or voice recognition software. Although voice recognition software is currently very useful as assistive technology, it requires the computer user to speak predetermined phrases in a specific structured order and voice to navigate the menus needed to accomplish tasks.

Current research and development are divided into two approaches that will ultimately converge as part of Microsoft .NET. First, work is being done to allow a computer users to type instructions into the computer by using phrases or sentences that are natural to them, in the language of their choice, rather than in predetermined computer instructions. This technique uses natural language to direct the computer. You can see the beginnings of this technology in Microsoft Office XP Help's Answer Wizard, which allows you to type a question to obtain help and information. In the future, a computer user would be able to interact with the computer by typing instructions without a predetermined structure or steps. For example, to schedule an appointment, a manager could type, "Make an hour appointment with John at 2 tomorrow to discuss his performance review."

The second area of focus is improved speech recognition. Once these two technology areas are mature, they will be combined to provide speech recognition of natural language. This will allow computer users to talk to their computers using their natural language to accomplish tasks. Although speech recognition of natural languages will become ubiquitous, typed entry of natural language phrases and sentences will also be available. Computer users who cannot speak due to their environment (such as too much noise or the need for privacy) or personal abilities will continue to use typed entry. So, for example, if the manager scheduling the appointment is in an airport, she could type the request. However, in the quiet and privacy of her own office, she might speak the request instead. If she were deaf, she could always choose to type her requests.

Seamless Customization

As Microsoft .NET provides users with more flexibility for how they interact with their computers, computers will automatically adjust to changes in environment and circumstances, providing seamless customization.

For example, say you've chosen speech as your input preference for your mobile device. One day you are in a large conference room waiting for a meeting to begin and the ambient noise gets to a level where speech input is no longer practical. Your mobile device automatically adjusts and switches to your alternate input preference, which is handwriting. The preferences you have chosen will be available to you wherever you go through the use of a smart card (which resembles a credit card and contains an integrated circuit and memory that gives it a limited amount of "intelligence"), a smart mobile device containing your individual information, or a Web service where you registered your personal preferences. Suppose that you go to the library to do some research of old stacks and need to use the library kiosk to begin your search. The library kiosk automatically uses your preferences, obtained from the Web service where you registered, and might even download assistive technology from the Web if you require it in order to interact with the system. For someone with a mobility impairment, a wireless switch might be attached to a wheelchair, allowing the person to use the library kiosk without additional assistance. This portable flexibility means that you and your colleagues, based purely on personal preference, can choose to interact differently.

These adaptable systems are especially important for the aging population. As functional limitations occur, more assistance or different modes of interaction might be needed. A person using handwriting for input can continue to use the system even after arthritis prevents him from writing. The system adapts to his needs as they change and allows him to use speech to interact instead.

Improved User Experience for Assistive Technology

Recall that assistive technology products built on Microsoft .NET will use the new interfaces in the .NET infrastructure to gain access to countless applications without additional work. Assistive technology manufacturers will be able to focus more on improving the user experience for their customers by spending their saved development dollars to provide enhanced features.

For example, a manufacturer of a screen enlarger could provide support for dual monitors (two monitors working together to show the computer desktop and application windows as though they were one monitor) to greatly improve the usability of its product and increase productivity for its customers. Although support for dual monitors has been available in the Windows operating systems for some time, no assistive technology manufacturer has provided support. Just as someone using a pair of binoculars to view wildlife needs to verify his relative position by looking at the complete viewing area without magnification, a person using a screen enlarger needs to see the orientation of the enlarged area within the overall screen. This means that the enlarged portion can take up only part of the monitor viewing space. With support for dual monitors, the enlarged content could take up one monitor's viewing area, leaving the other monitor's display for orienting the location of the enlarged area.

Communicate and Collaborate Worldwide: Language Conversion

Improved speech recognition capabilities include the ability to perform language conversions. Early products are beginning to appear that convert text in one language to speech in another, and vice versa. A hand-carried language translator can provide opportunities for anyone needing to communicate across language barriers including those barriers produced by hearing loss. In addition to providing language translation to text, current prototype products are also able to provide the translation to a visual representation of American Sign Language (ASL) or other sign language variants.

A person who is deaf or hard-of-hearing can use the device to listen to speech and convert it into text, sign language visuals, amplified speech, or a combination of amplified speech and text. And, even more remarkably, the language used doesn't have to be that of the speaker. Likewise, the person who is deaf or hard-of-hearing can use the translator to "talk" to someone else's translator, converting the text into speech.

These capabilities will extend to video and phone conferencing, truly opening up worldwide communications for everyone.

Managing Data: Intuitive Access to Information

Many of us are inundated with too many files and have difficulty keeping track of them all. When an employee spends precious time looking for a document he knows is stored somewhere on his computer, lost productivity results.

Current research and development is progressing on adaptive interfaces for accessing, storing, and manipulating data. The current computer interfaces for managing data were designed when disk storage was a premium. Now that multi-gigabyte storage devices are cheap and ubiquitous, people have difficulty finding important documents when they need them. Add to this the multitude of information available on the Internet, and the problem is even more serious. With these adaptive interfaces, the actual file and data organization is hidden from the user, and the information is presented in a more meaningful way. For instance, it might be presented by time and purpose of documents. More intelligent search capabilities coupled with sophisticated indexing mechanisms means that the data can be found quickly and easily. Although this capability helps everyone, it is particularly useful for people with mild memory loss or other cognitive impairments. It also reduces the navigation necessary to find information, which helps people with visual or mobility impairments be more productive.

Accessing and Managing Appliances with Universal Plug and Play

Appliances that once were usable by most people have become increasingly inaccessible to people with disabilities. Copiers, microwave ovens, and washers and dryers, to name a few, have replaced physical push buttons and dials with touch screens and flat panel buttons for operation. People who are blind or mobility impaired can't use these technology "improvements." They can, however, use the physical push buttons and dials that were replaced. Ironically, manufacturers made these changes to improve the experience for their customers.

A new technology called Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is being used to develop home and office appliances of tomorrow and will address these access issues. UPnP defines a protocol and an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema that is designed to enable simple and robust connectivity among stand-alone appliances, such as a copier or microwave oven, and personal computers from many different manufacturers. XML helps make the Internet an efficient platform for remote communication by allowing messages to describe their own content. XML is similar to an alphabet and an XML schema functions as a shared vocabulary for specific business terms and their context. UPnP is the result of an industry initiative and is a collaboration between more than 400 companies including industry leaders in consumer electronics, computing, home automation, home security, appliances, printing, photography, computer networking, and mobile products. Although UPnP was not initially designed to solve access difficulties because of its flexible design, it can be used to improve access for people with disabilities.

Using UPnP, home and office appliances—including microwave ovens, copiers, VCRs, thermostats, ATM machines, or kiosks—will be operated by a controller. A controller is a computer such as a personal computer, laptop, cell phone, or pager with computer capabilities that include managing e-mail or browsing the Web, or a mobile device that also manages e-mail, calendaring, tasks, and note taking. The controller must be able to communicate remotely using the UPnP protocol and is used by an individual or organization to manage and operate the variety of home and office appliances. Eventually, controllers could be imbedded in a piece of clothing, jewelry, a watch, or even a wheelchair.

One controller can be used to operate any number of different devices in the home or office because UPnP makes it possible to manage an entire range of appliances without special programming. And, the controller can be customized to meet the needs and preferences of the person using it.

The advantage UPnP will offer everyone is the convenience to manage appliances from anywhere. Say you are on the commuter train heading to work and you can't remember if you turned off the oven. Using your mobile device, you can check your oven and turn it off if necessary. A small business could use a computer running controller software to manage the office lights and heating system for cost savings. Everyone will benefit, but specifically people with disabilities who will be able to use an appliance with a specialized controller that works for them.

To provide these advantages, an appliance manufacturer need only define how customers interact and operate their appliances using a predefined XML schema definition. The specific definition is then stored on the Internet to allow access by any UPnP controller.

The mobile device or computer manufacturer creating a controller can then take this development process one step further and provide the software that allows remote access operation of the appliances using UPnP and the XML code describing the possible customer interactions. See Figure 9-1. By using a controller tailored to a person's preferences and needs, anyone will be able to access and use any appliance without the appliance manufacturer needing to understand or build to a particular person's access needs. Just as the appliance manufacturer doesn't need to understand the customer's preferences or access needs, neither does the manufacturer of the controller need to understand the specifics of a given appliance or what possible appliances are available.

Figure 9-1. Accessing appliances with a UPnP controller

For example, if the controller is a mobile device, it might have very large buttons for a person who is visually impaired or has dexterity impairments in his or her hands, or it might provide speech controls, which are useful for a wide range of individuals, particularly for those who are blind. Today, if microwave oven manufacturers want to offer models that can be controlled by speech for customers who are blind or visually impaired, they must integrate the speech technology themselves, considerably increasing the microwave oven's manufacturing complexity and costs as well as the retail price. With UPnP, microwave oven manufacturers could offer their customers with visual impairments a microwave that meets their needs through the use of a specialized controller without the additional development complexity and cost.

Also, consider the customer who is deaf. Many people who are deaf use a service dog (a "hearing dog") to inform them when the microwave oven has beeped. The dog requires months of training to be able to notify its owner of various kinds of noises. With UPnP, a microwave oven could inform a deaf consumer's mobile device instead of producing its normal beep. The controller would then flash lights or vibrate as directed by the consumer. In this way, the user would have a specialized type of response regardless of the appliance being used.

By providing flexibility and at the same time reducing the costs of design and manufacturing for that flexibility, UPnP can make access to appliances a problem of the past. Both the appliance manufacturer and the controller manufacturer can focus on their core area of expertise without worrying about the complex matrix of support, making access to a wide range of appliances possible for people with significantly different access needs.

The Workplace of Tomorrow

Now that we have a better understanding of the technology trends of the future, we will look at how this technology will transform and enhance your workplace. In this section, we review scenarios of people at work and look into the future to see how they might be improved.

Doris: the HR Manager

Today

Doris is a human resources manager and is visually impaired. She uses a screen enlargement program.

Tomorrow

Doris continues to use screen enlarger software on her computer but now has a second monitor that allows her to see a broader area of the screen, making her more productive. Doris also had difficulty reading the buttons and small print on the copier and on the office microwave. As a result, she had to memorize the functions she needed to use and had to take extra time when the equipment was upgraded or if she went to another department that used different equipment. Because she now has a mobile device with an enlarged display for controlling all of these appliances, she no longer needs to memorize buttons. Her mobile device tells the copier and the microwave the functions she wants to use. She no longer has any problems when the equipment is upgraded or if she is in another department. Her mobile device works with the new equipment seamlessly.

Robert: the Safety Manager

Today

Robert is a safety manager for a regional department of transportation. He lost a hand in an industrial accident and uses a Half Qwerty keyboard to interact with his computer.

Tomorrow

Although Robert's typing speed is very fast using the Half Qwerty keyboard, he prefers to use the latest speech recognition software. The software has greatly improved since the "old days" when it required exact commands and specific ways of talking in order for the computer to understand. Now he finds that talking to the computer allows him to express his actions in the way that is most comfortable for him. He's even discovered that interacting this way has sharpened his creativity and has simultaneously improved his productivity. He realizes that he feels less encumbered when he isn't typing, which has helped him to focus more on creative solutions to problems he is trying to solve.

Robert started using a mobile device designed to allow one-handed operation, which was originally designed for busy executives. It allows him to receive and make phone calls, remotely control his safety equipment, and keep track of his e-mail and schedule. In the past, he occasionally had difficulties with one-hand usage of a new copier or printer at the office. Now, he can easily operate them by using his mobile device. He's also discovered that he can use his mobile device to operate the local library's kiosk to find and reserve the new safety management book he read about on the Web.

Steve: the Researcher

Today

Steve is a research assistant who works in the corporate library of a large financial corporation. Steve's specialty is world economics, and he spends most of his day searching and reading statistical information on the Internet. Steve is deaf and takes advantage of visual replacements for sound, such as captioning.

Tomorrow

Steve was recently promoted to research manager, and he now manages a team of five research assistants. Steve still relies on captioning for accessing multimedia, but he's found that more multimedia provides captioning now because it is easier to produce captioning than it used to be. In his team meetings, he uses his tablet computer, which is the size of an average clipboard, to take written notes. He tells his computer what to do by typing English sentences as though he were directing a person. For example, he can type, "open a new Word document called January 7 Meeting Notes." The computer recognizes these sentences and seamlessly allows him to start taking notes. He's also found that he really likes to use handwriting to take notes and to organize his thoughts when producing team status reports. The new software that converts his handwritten English text into German is really beneficial because he can more easily share ideas with a research firm in Germany without having to know German. This language conversion capability allowed his company to expand its business by offering research services in Europe. He and his German colleagues can even communicate live using the software to translate German speech into English text, and vice versa. This technology fully accommodates his deafness in video conference calls as well.

John: the Dental Assistant

Today

John is a dental assistant who had a slight stroke six months ago. He has some muscle weakness and mobility impairments as well as some cognitive loss, which has resulted in mild difficulties with his short-term memory. John's job requires him to work for some part of each day entering and retrieving information from dental patient records using a computer.

Tomorrow

The new natural language interfaces have helped John immensely. He no longer has to remember the computer sequences necessary to accomplish a task. John can now tell the computer in plain English to schedule an appointment or to take his dictation of patient notes. He is amazed at how much more quickly he gets his computer tasks done now. He also finds that he doesn't need additional help from his colleagues like he did in the past.

When John's computer had to be repaired, he was worried that his computer tasks would back up. However, he was easily able to use another assistant's computer because it knew all of his preferences from his smart card and acted just like his own computer. This experience led John to try using the ordering kiosk at his local coffee shop. He was delighted to discover that the coffee shop computer also knew his preferences, also from his smart card, and he was able to place his order without difficulty.

Clair: the Lead Program Manager

Today

Clair is a lead program manager at a large software company. Clair has a learning impairment that targets her reading and writing skills including organization and reference skills. The computer is an essential tool that helps her capture her thoughts "in the moment" and to organize them at a later time.

Tomorrow

Clair has found that now that she can actually "talk" to her computer without having to remember specific commands, she is even more productive than before. As a team manager, she schedules many meetings each week and sends out status reports. She talks to her computer to schedule the meetings and then tells her computer when she wants to start writing status reports. Clair can write her status reports in her own handwriting. Although Clair is a very fast typist, she prefers to first write her thoughts down on paper. She now is more efficient because the thoughts she writes in her own handwriting on her tablet computer are transitioned to text by the computer. Because the computer understands what Clair tells it to do, she finds that she no longer needs to call her company's help desk.

Because Clair's new computer manages her documents for her, she no longer has to keep track of how her reports and research data are actually stored or organized. Her memory and intuition are geared toward time and task, and having all her documents and files presented this way works great for her. She can quickly and easily find the exact report she is looking for.

Accessible Technology Becomes Mainstream

In the next decade, the lines between mainstream expectations for technology and what we now call "accessible technology" will continue to blur significantly. More and more, computers will adjust to a person rather than the person adjusting to the computer. Computer users will want to interact with their computers the way that feels more natural to them rather than learning how to work with a computer and making the appropriate adjustments.

As this transformation occurs, the usability demands of individuals will be much the same as the accessibility requirements people with disabilities have today. Because technologies—such as speech recognition and voice output—are still relatively new and not as sophisticated as they promise to be, they are often relegated to the realm of assistive technology and early adopters. But as these technologies become more sophisticated, we will witness their transformation. They will be integrated into your average computer.

Conservatively, in the coming decade, all computer users will have sophisticated alternatives to interact with their computers. The average business computer will have built-in flexibility for alternatives such as handwriting and speech recognition. This will change and improve how people—including people with disabilities—interact with an ordinary computer. As a result, assistive technology will also change and might only be necessary for some niche access issues such as providing access for people with a combination of disabilities (for example, people who are deaf and blind or people with extensive mobility impairments).

Ideally, the most optimistic view of future technology is one where the need for what are now known as "accessible technology" and "assistive technology products" will no longer exist. All technology will be flexible enough to be accessed by anyone in the way that they choose, or for people with disabilities, in the way that they must, given their functional limitations.

As technology progresses, features such as those described earlier in this chapter will be integrated with Global Positioning System (GPS), cell phone, data organizer, and other capabilities into small mobile devices. These mobile devices might be woven into clothing, worn in the ear, attached to a wheelchair, or even become a new form of fashion jewelry. They will not only be able to manipulate our environment by turning lights on or off, or adjusting a thermostat, but they will also inform us of where we are and provide critical information about our environment. This will put everyone in control and allow them to interact and manipulate their environment, regardless of ability, through the method of their choice. Through this technology, we will realize Steve Ballmer's vision, "Over the next 10 to 15 years, technology has the capacity to virtually eliminate barriers (faced by people with disabilities) in the workplace." The next generation of technology will be life changing for everyone, but especially for people with disabilities.

When an employee who is blind can easily navigate through a new office building with no assistance other than the computer he always carries with him as a lapel pin, we'll know the future has arrived.