Assistive technology

From ArticleWorld

Assistive technology seeks to modify and improve certain equipment in order to render it more accessible for people with disabilities. Assistive technology allows disabled people to act more independently of their condition,

The idea of assistive technology appeared in the context of a lack of consideration for disabled people. For a long time, technology has ignored the needs of those with disabilities, contributing to the impairment of their daily tasks.

Common products

The common example is the text telephone (TTY). A text telephone converts text to tones that can be sent over a telephone line and decoded by the receiving text telephone. In some countries, text telephones can even interact with normal phones, with an intermediary operator that reads aloud what one person types, and types what the other one speaks.

With desktop computers becoming mainstream, special care had to be taken in this area. Most graphical desktop environments include special features to assist disabled people. Those with visual impairments may be helped by a Magnifier, a program that magnifies certain areas of the screen. Sticky keys is another useful feature for those who are unable to press more keys simultaneously, by allowing key combinations to be pressed in a sequence and not at the same time. Some of them also support text-to-speech.

A special case is that of the Braille display. The Braille display is a special type of hardware that converts the text on screen to Braille characters.

Debates

When the idea of assistive technology began to be taken seriously, the first trends were against making it a priority in design and engineering. Later, especially after the rights of disabled people became more clearly stated, accessibility became a priority in design, making assistive technology more important.

The main debate between engineers and designers was whether assistive technology should be integrated to all products, or integrated just in certain products, especially designed for disabled people. Most minds seem to have set on the idea that, wherever possible, the design should be made accessible to disabled people, as long as it does not have an negative impact on the general functionality of the project. The fact that disabled people should be able to use the new technology is no longer under debate though. It's a fact.