My friend Ilse spends ten times more than most people to get online and access a computer or smart phone. For the extra cost she only has access to a fraction of the functions I have access to and she can’t reliably use many of the apps or Web sites she should be able to use. The documentation and marketing of her equipment assumes that a specialized professional is needed to choose and understand her equipment. If her equipment needs maintenance she has to go to a special repair service rather than a local computer repair shop. Every time software is updated she loses more interoperability. Ilse lives below the poverty line, as do many people who share her circumstances. Ilse requires the costlier alternative computer access system because of a disability, she cannot use the standard interfaces because of the way they are designed and the conventions we have encouraged.

Vicious Cycle

Even in the digital era, affordability is supported by economies of scale. Availability, training, maintenance, and easily sourced general knowledge are the purview of mainstream, standard systems. The minute you create anything specialized and segregated you lose economies of scale, you decrease availability of service & training and you significantly increase the cost. Most importantly, given the complexity of networked technologies and software, you compromise interoperability. Without interoperability every app, every Web service, becomes an exercise in infuriating futility. For anyone using a specialized, separate system, whatever interoperability you enjoy could be threatened by the next upgrade. As everything critical to daily living becomes computer mediated, my friend Ilse is caught in an untenable vicious cycle.

The small company that creates Ilse’s equipment has a limited customer base. They have the impossible challenge of maintaining interoperability with a huge number of applications and services that we all take for granted. Many of these applications and services are made by companies that keep the technical details regarding interoperability a trade secret. Given the precarity of the specialized niche market, the equipment Ilse depends upon could become unavailable at any time, leaving her without access. This is made even worse because the training investment she needs to make, in learning to use her interface, is far greater than the investment I need to make. The small company that designed her equipment has limited time or resources to invest in good interface design.

Designing to the Edge

There is evidence that my friend, and others in her situation, need not pay more or make do with less. Companies such as Apple have shown that similar functions can be a standard, integrated part of every platform, computer, smart phone or tablet, and that everyone can benefit from this functionality. Apple took on the seemingly impossible challenge of creating a touch interface that is accessible to someone who is blind. So why does this situation persist, when it is self-evident that it puts people in Ilse’s situation at a disadvantage, adding to the other disadvantages she tackles with on a daily basis?

Vested Interests

The reason is complex, with multiple entities at fault. Most large manufacturers of the standard technologies would rather not stretch their designs to encompass Ilse’s needs. This is a lost opportunity as adding edge functionality that would meet Ilse’s needs would be beneficial for all their users and would likely spark innovation (as any company that has boldly added edge functionality can attest to). Of course, the small niche manufacturers that create alternative access systems lobby to survive, despite the precarious and broken business and technical models, and who can fault a company that serves people experiencing disabilities. Most organizations of professionals that prescribe specialized technologies and train people in using alternative access systems are invested in maintaining a system that requires their expertise; and discourage a system that empowers the consumer to make their own choices.

Government Responsibility

All of these interests are understandable given their local context. However, government programs and interventions should take an entire system into account and look to the long-term effects of an intervention. This is why I find it hard to explain why we are spending millions in public funds to sustain and even amplify the vicious cycle of digital disparity that this scenario creates.

We, the public through our governments, are doing this in several ways. The laudable funding programs we have, to assist people experiencing disabilities in purchasing technologies, will often only fund specialized technologies; not mainstream technologies that are far more affordable and available. The government programs fear that people that don’t need alternative access systems will take advantage of the funding. The segregated scenario is also boosted by our laws and policies. Rather than requiring that the large mainstream companies meet Ilse’s needs; the regulations only require that the company’s products and services are compatible with her alternative access system and all other alternative access systems. This is a complex and virtually impossible requirement as the interoperability standards needed to work with the large range of alternative access systems are fragmented and often non-existent. This requirement can also serve to hamper technical innovation as alternative access systems are not updated as quickly, thereby pitting mainstream technology interests against accessibility interests.

Most baffling however are government funding programs called “accessible technology” funding programs that encourage the expansion of a segregated niche market in assistive technology, rather than making the mainstream technologies more accessible. This is understandable for products and services where interoperability is not as critical, such as wheelchairs or rehabilitation equipment. It is short-sighted and dangerous to encourage specialized separate systems when it comes to anything computer-mediated. There are only very small windows of opportunity to inject functionality into new mainstream digital systems before many complex layers of dependent and connected technologies propagate; making it impossible to retrofit. Lock-in phenomena prevent reversal of design decisions. However, a range of alternative interfaces, if integrated from the start, is not only possible but also supports longevity, ease of update and long-term flexibility. It makes for a better, more generous and innovative design.

These policies and government interventions also fail to address other critical functions that would break the vicious cycle Ilse finds herself in. There are no programs to ensure that her equipment is compatible with technologies deployed in most places of work. No program is making sure that Ilse can participate in producing code, even though all school children are now encouraged to code. Laws and policies appear to assume that Ilse will only be a consumer of information and products, rather than also a producer of information and products. There is no impetus for openly licensing the funded innovations, even though they are produced using public dollars.

What most irks me on my friend Ilse’s behalf (and on my own behalf as I expect to find myself in her situation sooner or later) are the implicit assumptions that underlie these policies and programs: the assumption that she cannot and does not want self-determination and full participation in our digitally transformed society; that it is acceptable to perpetuate dependence and cycles of poverty; that the metrics regarding new niche companies and the rhetoric of entrepreneurship, no matter how untenable, is more important than long-term inclusion and prosperity for people who are marginalized.

Let’s spend our public dollars to create integrated systems that include all our human differences, it will serve us all well when we find ourselves in Ilse’s position.

**Please note this work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License**