Here is a little tidbit that may interest you, if you didn't see it.
David Andrews
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 16:28:53 EST
From: Jamal Mazrui <74444.1076@COMPUSERVE.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list EASI <EASI@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Subject: "Technology Gap" op-ed
The following op-ed appeared in today's New York Times
(Wednesday, April 3, 1996). Given its subject matter, I am
posting it electronically for the benefit of people with print
disabilities, considering this "fair use" under copyright law.
Congratulations to the American Foundation for the Blind and the
New York Times for addressing this subject!
----------
Technology Gap
by Carl R. Augusto
While the Internet's World Wide Web and Microsoft's Windows '95
have increased popular interest in personal computers and in the
information superhighway, we Americans who are blind or otherwise
visually impaired are being forced onto a side road.
For a decade, we have made great strides toward equality in employ-
-------------------------
Computer software ignores the blind.
-------------------------
ment and education through the use of DOS-based personal computers
equipped with screen magnifiers or voice or Braille playback of
what we write at the keyboard.
Corporate executives, computer systems analysts, airline
reservations agents as well as professors and lawyers use this
equipment to download research services and write books and briefs.
Apple and I.B.M. have developed software that makes their operating
systems accessible to us, but most of the information technology
developed for the mass market has been designed with virtually no
consideration for people with limited eyesight. Windows 95, the
world's most popular operating system, relies on graphics that are
difficult and sometimes impossible to transform for voice or
Braille playback. The same is true of Netscape, one of the most
popular ways to access the Internet.
Agencies for the blind are receiving numerous reports from clients
who say they can't get or keep jobs because of Windows software.
This problem may have legal ramifications under the Americans With
Disabilities Act, but that's not our first concern now.
A little noticed provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996
requires the industry to do what it has not done voluntarily: Give
us an equal opportunity to use its products. The companies now
have to address the problem. But they must do so during product
development; if they simply retrofit equipment after it reaches the
stores, we will constantly be playing catch-up.
We are already far behind. A 1991-92 Census Bureau survey reported
that only 26 percent of people between the ages of 21 and 64 whose
vision was severely limited had jobs.
This disparity, now aggravated by the technology gap, is unfair to
many of the 9.7 million blind or visually impaired Americans, more
than half of whom are 55 or older. We have fought for equality far
too long to become second-class citizens again.
Carl R. Augusto is president of the American Foundation for the
Blind.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:04 PST