Summary
On Global Awareness Accessibility Day hashtag#GAAD, I picked some highlights from recent Inclusively Podcasts to increase awareness and help everyone think more about Accessibility and Inclusion.
With thanks Niel Milliken , Antonio Vieira Santos, Chris McGinley, Larry Goldberg, Nick Hunn and of course, my Inclusively colleague Monica Paolini.
We continue to explore the topic of Inclusively in telecoms though our Inclusively podcast. Here are my take aways:
- Many companies have taken on accessibility professionals but these are often small in number and are isolated within the business, lacking senior level champions so having little impact throughout the organisation. Furthermore, those who drive the topic from the CSR and Foundation parts of their businesses are also having limited impact . However, Atos have put a strategic group at the centre of the corporate function, alongside IT and HR, in order to reinforce the corporate goals of building a more inclusive and accessible workforce as well as supporting a more inclusive customer experience
- Bluetooth point solutions still have a role to play. In much of my musing around the immersive experience for People With Disabilities (PWD,) my assumption was always that the power of networking with its many flavours of Quality of Service and capacity would embrace the PWD requirements. However, the new Bluetooth Auracast broadcast standard looks to have major potential in distributing high quality sound to Vision Impaired people in theatres, museums, even sports stadia to round out their enjoyment of an event
- Captioning has gone from strength to strength and from niche to mainstream since its invention in Boston by the public broadcaster WGBH In the 1980s. Indeed, the accessibility consultant Larry Goldberg mentions observing people on the New York subway using captions during their commutes. And as many of us now observe, it’s a standard feature of collaboration meetings around the world!
- Consumerisation: Formerly expensive, disability specific solutions are gradually being commoditised through the expansion of consumer electronics such as earbuds with hearing aid features, smart glasses with cameras and speakers as well as the potential for haptic feedback from any number of sensors and even skin patches. This will also allow the crossover between formerly very separate impairments such as hearing and vision – especially true for the silver/grey market
- AI has an impact on every aspect of accessibility and inclusion: automated captioning, translation into sign language, giving people the choice of channel of interaction as well as creating some agents that will cater for our individual, often idiosyncratic requirements!
- Inclusive Design (a term invented at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design over 30 years ago) encourages a step back from the technology that the telecoms industry always starts with, and rethinks the ways in which design might be used to create a more inclusive product. Simulating products such as a new London Black Taxi might not be a pure software play, but many elements of our daily lives can easily be simulated through the tools available to product developers today.
Importantly, given recent shifts in DEI activity and emphasis, it should be noted that accessibility is a legal requirement as well as being a market opportunity to design inclusively and expand Total Addressable Markets for the telecoms industry. There are a lot of moving parts in the ecosystem but building that core function into group functions will allow for specific education around the subject for immediate impact as well as longer term inclusion across the organisation.
It is Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 15th so please spread the word and keep up the great work that all Inclusively contributors are doing to build a more Inclusive telecoms industry that benefits everyone, not just the tech geeks.
If you would like my summarised notes of the relevant Inclusively episode, please drop me a line.
Otherwise, you can enjoy all the episodes on your podcast platform of choice