EGALITARIANISM IN ACCESSIBILITY, NOT JUST FOR THE DISABLED!

 

DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY:

Accessibility being almost a human right in the digital world, still is an unachievable dream to many disabled & normal people with basic problems or disorders. The art of providing hassle-free accessibility to everyone without any discrimination is the main motto of “Digital accessibility”. World Wide Web (WWW) being accessible all around the world on every others’ finger tips shouldn’t be a problem to those who do not have fingers. To those unable to partake in the services due to various inabilities or disabilities due to the complexity in the design of particular technology products or environment is the biggest challenge that ‘Digital accessibility’ is facing in ongoing digital world. In simple terms digital accessibility is just the use of dependable or reconciling environment that benefits all kinds of users.

Digital accessibility is very much an addition or an adjunct to the Americans with Disabilities Act- ADA principles proposed by United States Congress (USC) in 1990. ADA provides a structured system which assures the safety & benefits the disabled in workplaces.  Whereas digital accessibility is the design of a particular technology product or environment in such a way that it is easy to be accessed by all & is also user-friendly.

Coming to India, we also have few laws & acts that work in the betterment of disabled people & also fight back the discrimination of the disabled. The Person with Disability Act (1995), The Mental Health Act (1987), The National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, and Multiple Disabilities Act (1999), Rights of Persons with Disability Act (2016)- all the above mentioned acts work in the welfare of the disabled. But, the ultimate motto of all these acts is fighting the humiliation & the discrimination faced by the disabled in workplace or elsewhere rather than concentrating on improving the better work environments that support all kinds of users. Here is where the digital accessibility comes into the course of action. How far all the platforms or technology products being used are under the principles of digital accessibility? How far a disabled person is getting benefitted from the digital accessibility design of a particular site or web or any other technology automated product/mechanization is still a big question to all the digitally pacing workrooms.

 

 

DIGITAL ACCESIBILITY IN INDIA & its PROMINENCE:

Like ADA in America, Unfortunately India doesn’t have any standard law of code or practice that frames rules & regulations to those working in workplaces with disabilities from birth or that have come into picture due to ageing or neither there is any organization that looks after the unruly designs of websites with much more complexities that also aren’t user-friendly. But, in India it is a legal responsibility of public & private sectors to provide accessible content to everyone, but as already told there isn’t any entity that recognises such legal ethics & penalizes unruly actions. 

Thankfully, World Wide Web Consortium (WWWC) has certain guidelines for designing accessible content to all & designers should abide by it. But, the 2016 Right of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPD) provides certain guidelines to the content creators or web designers or technical platform builders who must abide by them otherwise are penalized or fined accordingly. But, how far people with inbuilt or natural disabilities are really benefitted from such acts is again a question & a challenge for “Digital accessibility “in India.

IS DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY ONLY FOR AND AT THE VERGE OF DISABLED?

The persons with various disabilities range on a very big & a varied scale. There can be mental disorders, cognitive disabilities, visual, auditory disorders, autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, depression, anger management issues, social illness & many more. According to 2011 census, out of 1.23 Billion populations in India, more than 2.1 percent of population suffers from more than one kind of disabilities.  However 70% of the 2.1% disabled are unemployed, so only the other 0.014% works in the workplaces. This shows the impact of laws designed specifically for the disabled. The poor rate of statistics of disabled being employed is a sign of be in need of awareness or the other reason for such poor rate of employment in disabled is due to discrimination from the rest of the crew in workplaces. But, are only these working disabled people at the risk of losing jobs due to the inaccessible design of technical environments?

EMPLOYEES WITH TEMPORARY DISORDERS ARE AT A HIGHER RISK OF LOSING JOBS.

Digital accessibility is not just for the disabled but to everyone who intends to use the technical environments in their convenient manner. In today’s world Diabetics is a biggest threat to all the middle aged or younger workforce in India. According to a research of WHO, more than 77 million people are suffering from type – 2 diabetics above 18 years & almost 25 million people are at a very high risk of developing diabetics in near future. In every 15 diabetic persons, at least 1 person has a threat of Diabetic Macular Edema (DME), where the blood vessels in eye are damaged & leads to irregular vision loss which is not complete blindness or complete blurry vision but are most likely to develop spots in eyes which makes the vision slightly hazy. And around 30% of diabetic persons are likely to develop auditory issues or are affected by organ damages. Here, a diabetic person is not the only issue, but there are en-numerous disabilities that people encounter in their cycle of life which aren’t sometimes termed as disabilities!

So, in any of the above issues, what can a standing employee do if attacked by such a disease randomly in their course of work cycle? Should they resign their jobs? Should they hire man force that can work as their subordinate & sacrifice their half savings to them? Or take a decision about their living? Simple, hazy vision or small auditory problems troubling the employees go helpless suddenly due to such un-warned attack of diseases. In such a case, neither the “Disability” acts, laws nor regulations are helping them nor are they supported by the workplaces too.

DOES THE EXISTING DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY POLICY NEED ANY MODIFICATION OR EXTENSION?

According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), digital accessibility follows 4 principles, simply called by an acronym- POUR- Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. There are various examples that show how digital accessibility works. But, there is always a need to extend the criteria for any such special cases like mentioned above. Not just designing the accessible products in such a way that there are options for keyboard accessibility, sensory accessibility, and auditory accessibility etc, but still we need a much more robust technology that supports the employees working in confidential sectors & whose identity or information related to their work should be confidential, like people in RAW agencies, or MNC working employees or high order government officials with sudden attack of disabilities or disorders which are curbing them from working further with the existing work environment & setup.

 

--- For example, let’s take a case of a QAE- Quality Assurance Engineer working for an XXX company for 30yrs or above, he works on different work environments or applications like Selenium, JSON & JAVA & also assists a team of 10 or so underneath him. Suddenly, one day his vision turns hazy due to the blood vessel damage in eye also known as Diabetic Macular Edemea or Diabetic Retinopathy due to prolonged diabetes mellitus. So, at that juncture when he is unable to access the work setup like his usual or clearly view the bugs in code, what is the alternative? Just do nothing! Because, that person cannot redesign the software on his own in a convenient way in his accordance/at his will or cannot depend on his subordinates for his work. The only option left for him is to see if company can find a better position that needs his services without troubling his disorder or else his job is at risk. Most probably MNC cannot support any employee on charity or sympathy, empathy basis. ---

Generally in such cases, digital accessibility should be a legalised entity in many countries which not only supports disabled but with persons who are at risk of getting into trouble with disorders that naturally come with age or prolonged illness.

DO WE NEED EGALITARIANISM IN DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY?

We have certain sensitive information that cannot be transcribed into audio notes or visually accessible content just like that. For suppose a visually impaired person cannot turn on an audio computer while typing passwords or working on confidential matters. We usually do not have software that are sensor friendly always. For, suppose the software ‘Autocad’ cannot be used by sensing with fingers always, as we definitely need the help of a cursor, mouse to draw plans or change tools, one cannot entirely depend on commands for drawing sophisticated plans or drawings. So, that becomes a problem to those who has 4 or less fingers on one hand. This is not a problem that is solely related to Autocad, but there are numerous such technology products that are not all users-friendly.

So, it would be great if people aim at finding better solutions to all the various problems faced by different disabled or people who are at risk of getting disorders in future. As of which it is important to extend the principles of digital accessibility from POUR to many others as follows:

Ø  Egalitarianism or equality in accessibility to all. Not just focussing on people with disabilities by birth but the immediate impetus is to look after safe guarding the employees that are already at risk of losing jobs for no fault of theirs but due to disorders that have come out of the blue due to ageing or any other causes.

 

Ø  Strengthening the existing acts or laws that are already formed in interests of disabled in such a way that benefit them the most rather than only concentrating on humiliation or discrimination faced by them. When there are better technologies that support the differently able-d, for sure the cases of humiliation & discrimination faced by the disabled will come down.

 

Ø  A separate guideline setup should be framed by each country that strictly monitors the design criteria of websites. Not, just confining to websites but the work setups & technology products should be at a thought of re-design phase with better policies & features that work in welfare of people who are likely to develop disorders in future.

 

Ø  People fighting with depression or anger management issues have a problem accessing irregular content on the internet that troubles & weakens them to core. So, it is better to design & test the accessibility before giving consent that is accessing the site. Like, we always need the website to ask few questions that analyse the mindset of the people & later display the content to them. It should mostly work with all social media platforms that give a hassle free access to everyone to any sort of content without prior trigger or warning.

 

Ø  Every private or public organization must hire a special team that concentrates on regulating the design team in designing technical or technology products/ platforms/ setups/ environments in such a way that the importance is cleaved between proper functionality of the product as well the alternative setup that authorizes access to any kind of users without any hurdle in any kind of circumstance.

 

Ø  Awareness at workplaces- Every workplace must instil the awareness to the employees without disorders on how to move with disabled & to keep it as simple as very normal. The disabled must be encouraged & trained to use the specially developed setup.

 

Ø  All the sensitive information for any kind of user is nevertheless valuable & confidential. So, speech navigator or reader kind programs used by auditory disorder persons or mobility disabled persons shouldn’t be at a risk of getting their sensitive/private information like passwords, personal mobile numbers, user ids etc revealed by the speech navigator kind applications. All those applications must be redesigned with much more robust technology that it has ways to deal with the persons with auditory or motor disorders.

FULL STOP TO THE RACISM IN DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY.

Pandemic has been a great experience to all the working employees, as everyone working with different environment setups & habituated with their work styles at offices or workplaces needed to work from home, remotely with all that are available with them. Working from home taught a great lesson to all those who refrained & forwent with “Digital accessibility”. Designing technology products that are accessible in only one particular way & only from one particular work environment has become the major challenge for all the designers during those phases of working from home. So, accessibility should be versatile & easily adaptable by any kinds of users with any kind of disorders or problems. Without even a disorder at least 50% of the works got delayed during pandemic phrase, which resulted in major losses for the companies due to the monotonous way of designing their technical products & setups. This is an alarming sign or indication that we need a different approach in developing the technology products/setups.

 

‘Digital accessibility not just for the disabled’- should be the main motto of all the companies & work service providers. Working from any device, say mobiles, smart watches, tablets etc should be the ultimate goal of designing any automation mechanisms or technology/technical setups, websites etc. Again just accessibility is not only the criteria, the designed product that is accessible on various devices must be robust, efficient & convenient too, which allows the smooth work flow.

Hope, soon we get to see a new digital world that is accessible to everyone & everywhere without any hindrance with extensions & advancements in “DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY”. Like in human races where we fought for equality & succeeded in dealing with it, even in digital world & platforms, advancements & extensions should be made which provides hassle free, hurdle less, efficient “Digital Accessibility”, that is the actual meaning of EGALITARIANISM IN DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY!