Much has been said about building inclusivity into technology, processes and all aspects of life. But what you might not realise is that helping people with disabilities drove development of some of our most impressive technology, now mainstream and widely used. As Esther McVey, the then-secretary of state for work and pensions, argued at Microsoft Future Decoded 2018: “When technology is designed to be assistive, it can become technology for everyone.”
From Segways to wearables, here are 10 examples of accessibility tech that has gone on to change everyone’s lives.
Ceefax
It has been seven years since the BBC switched off Ceefax. The teletext service was adored by millions and became the port of call for checking football scores on Saturday afternoons. But Ceefax actually came about 38 years earlier by complete accident.
In 1974, engineers at the BBC were exploring ways to provide deaf people with subtitles and discovered that the unused part of the 625-line television signal could be used to send messages and information – and thus Ceefax, or “see facts”, was born.
Gesture recognition
Pinch-to-zoom and three-finger swipes to the right and left are just a couple of the trackpad gestures Windows 10 laptop users will be familiar with.
The company arguably responsible for bringing gesture recognition devices to the mass market was Fingerworks. One of its lead engineers, Wayne Westerman, was inspired by a temporary disability – a bout of tendonitis. He found that using touch-sensitive technology helped to relieve his symptoms and believed it would do the same for others.
Speech-to-text
Thanks to the proliferation of smartphone technology, dictation and speech-to-text capabilities have seen a broad uptake in use.
But before speech-to-text became universally popular for dictation purposes, it was helping people who are quadriplegic or those with conditions such as multiple sclerosis to carry out tasks on their computers using voice commands. Helping a large set of users take advantage of the technology has been made possible because of companies such as Microsoft. The tech giant has been focused on bringing the software to a broad audience for years, having released its first speech API in 1995. Now its speech-recognition software, Dictation, will interpret users’ spoken words in eight languages, including English, Spanish and Japanese, and is widely available across the Office suite.
Text-to-speech
Finding your way around an unfamiliar city in a vehicle and receiving real-time traffic updates while on the road wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for voice-guided navigation – or, more specifically, speech synthesis.
Screen readers are a rudimentary form of speech synthesis technology and Windows-Eyes has been a software of choice for people who are blind or visually impaired since the mid-1990s. It enables computer users to access the various programs of a Windows operating system by converting text into speech. The technology is advancing to such a degree AI is now helping visually impaired people identify everything from friends and family to menu items. Microsoft’s Seeing AI app analyses pictures as well as text and describes them out loud. So it’s not just tech to stop you from taking a wrong turn.
Keyboard usability
The layout of the qwerty keyboard is so familiar, you can probably type without looking – that’s no coincidence.
Keyboard usability can be traced back to the early 19th century, when Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri created a mechanical typing machine and what’s thought to be the first typewriter. According to history books, a close friend of his was losing their sight and he wanted to find a way to keep in contact without having to dictate to a scribe. In order to use the machine, they had to rely on their sense of touch.
Segways
These two-wheeled electric vehicles are a preferred mode of transport for many enthusiastic tourists looking to see the most Instagrammable sites across a host of European cities. They’ve been so popular with tourists that they’ve actually had to be banned in parts of Barcelona and Prague.
The earliest incarnation of the Segway wasn’t intended for the helmet-wearing hordes, however. After witnessing a wheelchair user struggling to mount a kerb, Dean Kamen came up with iBot – a self-balancing mobility system that uses gyroscopic techniques to negotiate steps and uneven surfaces.
Self-driving vehicles
Owning a driverless car may once have been like a storyline from The Jetsons, but rapid advances in technology have made it a tangible reality.
In 2012, Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, became the first person to be taken for a ride in a driverless vehicle on a public road. This highlights how people with disabilities are likely to be key beneficiaries of driverless vehicles, even if the technology wasn’t explicitly designed for them.
Eye-gazing
The ability to track the gaze of your eyes is becoming popular among gamers, who in some instances are now able to integrate this into their favourite game-play scenarios. It is allowing greater and easier interaction with the gaming environment, for example changing the direction of the camera so users can “peer around a corner” without their character moving.
But eye-gazing has nobler origins; it was initially used by people with conditions such as cerebral palsy and locked-in syndrome to communicate. By simply looking at a screen, users were able to select words and construct sentences. Former NFL player Steve Gleason was the inspiration for Microsoft’s eye-control tech in 2014, when he challenged the company to develop a solution for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It went so well that three years later built-in eye-tracking support was added to Windows 10.
Wearables
Wearable technology is changing how you can interact with the world around you, and it is even augmenting reality.
Approximately 15 years before smart glasses went on sale to the public, neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita developed a device to enable those who are blind to “see” with their tongue. Today, the technology is sold as BrainPort: a pair of glasses with a small camera attached. A wire transmits visual input from the camera to a piece that users place on their tongue – light is converted into electrical impulses that then stimulate the tongue instead of the retina, creating a tactile image that the person wearing the device can use to navigate their surroundings.
Brain recording
Some of the latest wearable technology on the market offers to measure your brain activity and alert you when your concentration drops.
Back in 2006, brain-recording devices were being developed for home use for people unable to move or speak. A cap wired with electrodes recording signals from the brain enabled the person wearing it to select choices on a screen simply by thinking about them.
Clearly when technology is built with accessibility in mind, it ends up being beneficial to all. The powerful message that these 10 pieces of tech, and countless others that you will be using every day, convey is that accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought. In fact disability is often a lens for innovation. This is Microsoft’s view, which – along with resell partner John Lewis & Partners – is operating with a vision to empower everyone with its accessibility updates on Office 365 and Windows 10.
Whether you’re looking to upgrade your current device, or investing for the first time, John Lewis & Partners have the latest range of Windows laptops whatever your need. Speak to a partner in-store to find out more
