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Assistive technologies originally created for those with disabilities now have important benefits for a broader population. As Baby Boomers age—the first boomers turned 60 this year—millions belonging to this demographic are experiencing hearing and vision loss and the onset of other disabilities.
The World Health Organization estimates that up to a billion people suffer from a speech, vision, mobility, hearing or cognitive disability that keeps them from participating fully in an increasingly technology-dependent society.
Collaborative work with IBM partners has helped shape the power of IBM’s new assistive technologies to remove barriers. IBM Research has developed software that enables individuals to view the Web and other computer data in a way that’s most suited to their needs. For example, people with low vision can change the size of the type and can adjust colors and contrast of pages for easier viewing. Those with reading impairments can reduce the visual clutter of the page by changing several columns to one so they can follow text more easily. People without full mobility can set up their system so the mouse and keyboard are easier to touch and access. And people with other types of reading impairments can ask WebAdapt2Me to read the text on the screen aloud, using IBM ViaVoice technology. People can even opt to have computer information read aloud in a variety of foreign languages.
IBM has been involved in increasing access ever since it hired its first disabled employee in 1914. Over the years, the company has developed many dozens of products, such as screen magnifiers, narrators and stabilizers, that make computers more accessible to all, including disabled users. It operates several human ability and accessibility centers around the world, and has more than 100 researchers, computer scientists and experts who advance the state of the accessibility art.
Promising research by IBM scientists and engineers is tested through Corporate Community Relations grants at major organizations and schools, where users at the pilot sites help refine the technology. One such IBM collaboration with SeniorNet helped create many of the features now found in IBM WebAdapt2Me and IBM Easy Web Browsing. In turn, the products and services are now available through IBM Global Business Services to a worldwide market.
IBM donated accessibility code to the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox Web browser to make it easier for more users to access and navigate the Web. Similarly, IBM’s sharing of key intellectual assets with other parts of the open computing community is helping companies and software developers adopt and share best practices for Ajax software development, a technology that can improve Web accessibility. And most recently, IBM announced plans to equip computer science majors with the technical skills to develop or adapt computer programs for use by people with disabilities.
These programs and many more demonstrate IBM’s belief that the future of technology must include innovations that are accessible to everyone. The company actively supports uniform, or harmonized, accessibility technology standards around the world and our company is among the original sponsors of the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In collaboration with industries and governments, W3C advocates for the adoption of global standards to improve Web accessibility.
One man whose life has been directly impacted by such work is Dr. Wayne Dick, chairman of the Computer Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at California State University at Long Beach. Because he has minimal vision, the professor’s life required use of powerful magnifiers and talking-book equipment. But when the university selected WebAdapt2Me software from IBM to help its students and faculty gain easier access to the Web, Dr. Dick and many others crossed to the brighter side of the digital divide.
“We have 10,000 people with disabilities in the California State University system,” Dr. Dick says. “We could have 10,000 different accommodations. Or we could provide them with WebAdapt2Me.”
The result: access to education, healthcare information, world news, government programs, job listings, online banking, shopping opportunities, voter registration information and more.
IBM’s innovation will soon play to an even larger audience as the work done to assist people with disabilities also eliminates barriers for an aging workforce in a changing society.
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