Finding new aspects to accessibility within the new devices that are forthcoming is exciting and sometimes troubling if accessibility has not been consider. With the recent release of the Apple iPhone 6 questions loom about the added features that make this new device unique and innovative can also cause accessibility concerns.
The screen is slightly larger for the new edition of the iPhone. A larger screen is good for users with a visual impairment as it is simply easier to see. A person with fine motor impairment can make navigating a tiny touch screen accurately very difficult. In that case a larger screen can be an upside to the user. Users that manage the small motions fine may find the larger strokes create a challenge and find it cumbersome. Limited motion due to size has caused some users to criticize the iPad.
The battery life has been improved on the iPhone 6. This is usually seen as a positive to all users. Especially when the user uses their device as communication device or as assistive technology. Longevity is also a huge benefit to everyone but is especially helpful to consumers with disabilities and anyone that needs the device to be accessible.

iPhone 6.0 1
iOS 8 has strived to be an accessible operating system and has accessibility features that previous iOS’s versions inspired. The new iPhone 6 will run iOS 8 when it is released which many hope will include access features that have not yet been announced.
The new OS also promises to run the new Apple Pay, which is a new type of program that is striving to replace credit cards entirely. The accessibility implications of this are numerous. The idea is to use your iPhone to securely transfer money is one that is astounding and would allow many of us easier access to monetary transactions. When the iWatch is released it may too have many accessibility accomplishments that we have yet to imagine. These devices show that accessibility can be a great way to widen the use of mobile technology for all.

Apple has been a leader in accessibility and their innovation has change lives. I hope they continue to blend accessibility into every device, app and service that is offered.

Social Media and Accessibility

By Debra Ruh, CEO of Ruh Global Communications

I am a big communicator and to be honest it got in trouble a lot in school for chattering.  In High School, teachers said that I couldn’t stop talking and my Mom often got notes about this issue.  I remember in 5^th grade my teacher saying if one more person talks or laughs you will be staying after school.  You guessed it that made me giggle and yes – I stayed after school and then stay in my room that weekend on restriction.  I love to talk, sing, write and just chatter.  My family and friends understand and usually appreciate this about me.  Sometimes I think my husband wouldn’t mind gagging me but after 29 years of marriage he would never openly say that because then we would have to “talk” about it.  He says that I even talk in my sleep.

So I bet you have guessed it – I LOVE social media.  Social Media allows me to chatter with people all over the world.  Plus I can get instantaneous chatter back, I remember when Virginia had our earthquake (okay California- no wise cracks) it was traumatic for us.  I couldn’t believe how many aftershocks we felt.  One night we had a 5.3 aftershock and it woke everyone up in the house.  My husband and daughter went back to sleep but I was shaken and started thinking scary thoughts like what if a really big one comes and what if a tree falls on the house.  I have a great imagination and sometimes I don’t appreciate it late at night.  So I got up and got on my social media to chatter about it and calm my nerves.  I chattered with people all over Richmond and it really helped calmed me down and made me feel safe knowing others were feeling the same way.

I also use social media to chatter about the community of people with disabilities (PwD) and accessible Internet, Communications and Technology (ICT).  I believe that the community of PwD is starting to find our voices via social media.  However, there are some significant accessibility problems with social media.   We find that many social media tools and applications are not blending accessibility into their products.  So PwD are often left out of the social media conversation and movement because they are inaccessible

Really – come on – can’t everyone be allowed to participate?  If we don’t make social media accessible than we continue to widen the “Digital Divide” and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) one in seven people are impacted with disabilities worldwide.  Plus 1 out of 3 households in the U.S. are impacted by disabilities.  Worldwide, this group numbers 500-750 million people and is a key influencer of the public’s perceptions.

The Internet has opened many opportunities and has greatly improved the quality of life for these users, but they still face barriers. You might think of disabilities in extreme terms such as blindness and deafness, but it also includes many others with visual or hearing impairments that are increasingly common in our aging population, and other challenges such motor and cognitive impairment.

Can an organization really afford to lose this audience?  I don’t think so and this community is really chattering on the more accessible platforms so if social media tools are not accessible those platforms stand to lose out on major benefits.

Sometimes we hear that it is too hard to make an application or platform accessible.  How ridiculous – accessibility should be built into the system just like you would build in privacy, security or usability.

There is NO excuse to not make your Social Media applications fully accessible so that everyone can use them.   In years past, developers were afraid that making the application accessible would make a system less usable or “dummy” the system down.  Once again, ridiculous – we have seen amazing strides with accessible social media and now it is BAD design if you do not blend accessibility into the process level.

Want to know more?  Join our free webinar on Accessible Social Media or download a free trial version of our Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) it is a knowledge platform that has tons of tips, online training and suggestions for making applications fully accessible.

For further information about TecAccess and their current endeavors, visit their website at SSB Bart Group

What type of mobile phone user are you?  Are you a Blackberry, Android, iPhone or another device?  I am still a Blackberry user and fairly happy but peeking over the fence at iPhone and Androids.  At first I stayed with the Blackberry because I travel internationally and they seemed to get better coverage.  Plus I work all the time (bad habit of mine) and Blackberry really met my needs.  However after I started using an iPad in May 2011, yes I was a slow adopter but thanks to Tim Springer I went to the other side and I really love my iPad.  I like it so much that now I am considering moving to the iPhone to replace my Blackberry.  Now I am not willing to give up my windows based Laptop but using all these devices together is sublime.

I have a lot of choices however many people have very few choices because there are still a lot of accessibility problems with mobile phones not to mention the Digital Divide where many consumers cannot buy the latest device available.  It is discouraging to see my friends and family not having the same choices that I do because of accessibility issues.

In February CBS News did an article stating that the number of mobile phone subscriptions had reached 4.6 billion and was expected to hit 5 billion in 2011. It is critical that everyone have access to communications and technology and that includes people with disabilities.

“Mobile phone providers in rich countries offer advanced services and handsets, while people in developing countries increasingly use the mobile phone for health services and banking, said the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).  “Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services,” said the agency’s Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure.”  (1)

Mobile devices are being used to access all kind of data including financial data.   “Between 500 million and 1 billion people will access financial services by mobile by 2015, depending on estimates. The MFS market will be dominated Asia, driven by mobile operator-led initiatives in developing nations to bank the unbanked. Remittance/transfers by mobile is growing three times faster than m-banking.” (2)

So what needs to be done to assure everyone can participate.   A good first step is to design the device following Universal Design and Accessibility Standards.   Blind, Vision Loss, Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Mobility Impairments, Intellectual Disabilities and the Elderly are impacted by inaccessible devices.

According to the W3C:

“More concretely, many of the mobile devices’ limitations match a number of well-known disabilities:

• the small screen can easily induce pages with very small characters,
• the limited viewport makes layout and browsing context changes as disturbing as for someone with limited vision,
• the sometimes difficult lighting conditions (e.g. from using a phone screen under the sunlight) can make colors and contrasts as difficult to identify as for a person with colors perception problems,
•  the lack of mouse matches the inability of some persons to use a mouse due to motricity difficulties,
• likewise, the very limited and often hard-to-use keyboards available on mobile devices is evocative of the difficulties some persons with disabilities can have to interact with a keyboard
• the social and mobility context of some mobile users make the use of some modalities (sound, video) for multimedia content inappropriate, matching the inability for some people to hear sounds or see images
• in a mobile context, a user might have a very limited or patchy attention span, as someone with a cognitive disability might have
• on mobile networks where time and cost are often limiting factors, being able to determine what an image is before it gets downloaded matters — at having such a description would help a blind user
• the use of some technologies (plug-ins, scripts) might not be possible on a number of mobile devices, like they wouldn’t be usable with a number of assistive technologies” (3)

Everyone needs access to the internet, communications and technology.  I applaud companies that have made accessibility part of the development life cycle.  In the future, I will be blogging about some of these amazing best practices.

References and Footnotes

(1)    www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/15/business/main6209772.shtml

(2)    http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats

(3)   http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/