Architecture School of Arts, Culture and Environment The University of Edinburgh Professor of Architectural Computing 20 Chambers Street EH1

1JZ Scotland julienpierrefeu@yahoo.fr

Julien PIERREFEU 0453336

MSc Sound Design 03/12/2004

MEDIA AND CULTURE

EXPERIENCE AND ACCESSIBILITY OF THE TECHNOLOGY BY PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.........................................................................................................2 Introduction..................................................................................................................3 Definition of disability.................................................................................................4 Experiencing as a metaphor ........................................................................................5 Disability and culture...................................................................................................6 Experiencing Design and Technology.........................................................................7 Disability and the Net................................................................................................10 Conclusion.................................................................................................................12 Bibliography..............................................................................................................13

Introduction
The relationship between disability and civil rights was made explicit by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which codified one definition of accessibility: public access for people who had disabilities (Lifchez R, 2002). Unfortunately, however this statement, technological progress does not necessarily imply enhancement of applicability of information technology. In general, special needs of handicapped end-users are not equally taken into consideration by system designers. Handicapped people are usually not included into design processes. Therefore, products are often inaccessible due to small but - with regard to certain disabilities - crucial shortcomings.1 The causes of disability are then linked to disabling barriers and social restrictions, rather than to the functional limitations of people with impairments (Barnes, 1995). Then this essay tries to answer several questions. How people with a disability perceive things? What happen if the person with a disability experiences design in a professional environment thanks to new technologies that permits him enough autonomy to innovate by himself. Will it be able to adapt himself in a technological environment and will it be a more sensitive and universally product that understands the needs of everyone? If youre blind or visually-impaired, how do you read and interpret the text, graphics, menus, dialogue boxes, and other visual details on-screen? How do you read the legends on the keyboard? How do you read software documentation? If youre deaf or hard-of-hearing, how will alert sounds (like error beeps) actually manage to alert you? How do you benefit from soundtracks found in multimedia? This essay will focus on the different levels of experiences and perception by a person with an impairment in our society from a single task to a professional design employment in an interactive technology environment. It will develop the role of digital tools in terms to access to information technologies and the role that plays internet on the life of people with a disability.
1

http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw28/gappa.html

Definition of disability
This essay starts by defining the term of disability. What does being disabled mean? The law describes a person with a disability as having: "A physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term adverse effect upon their ability to carry out normal day to day activities. An impairment is the specific part of the body or brain that doesn't function fully.2 Here is a graphic showing the percentage of people split by disabilities in the world in 1999.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/uk/disability/newsid_3672000/3672642.stm

Experiencing as a metaphor
Experience and perception are linked. In life, senses work as a whole and unique perception of what a person experience. For example, according to Stone sex involves as many of the senses as possible. Taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing and, for all I know, short-range psychic interactions. This argument can be applied in a more general perspective of an every day task, as a simple as a more complex one. Then no doubt things are different when a person doesnt have one of these senses and has to relate experiences through the description on how it is described by someone else. Coyne notices that: According to phenomenologist we do not only hear abstract noises which we interpret, but we hear sounds as car engines, as birds callswe are engaged in metaphorical projections. It is interesting to wonder if this is still applicable with a person who has never heard a car engine in his (her) life and had just a description of how it sounds like by someone else. It would mean also that a blinded person would imagine the car as someone who would hear the sound without seeing the car. It could be a subject developed in another essay. But compare to a person without any disability the imagination plays a very important role here. Indeed, like Metaphor also elevates the role of the imagination in design (Coyne R, 1995, p.250), disabilities as well provide a great potential of creativity.

Disability and culture

Lots of important artists of the last centuries were living with an impairment: blindness (Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder) or deafness (Beethoven). Its known that artists with a disability expressing themselves tend to experience these bodily differences not as something 'unnatural', but as their own, familiar, central identity 3. Disability is not a brave struggle or courage in the face of adversitydisability in an art. Its an ingenious way to live (Marcus, 1993).

Movies like Dancer in the Dark prove the important role of imagination in a person with a disability as the character becoming blinded ask her friend to describe what is happening on the screen of the cinema. Catherine Deneuves character, by touching Bjorks character arm with her finger, just describes the dance done during the musical. Its one of the most touching scene of the film and it shows very well the enjoyment that can procure a friendship with a disabled person. More it procures a kind of strength to the character as people who help others empower themselves (Corsun and Enz, 1999). Its an interesting subject for directors and it has been treated in different ways over the century. At an early age cinema has been used for helping people with a disability and it could be used in an educational way. Director Demeny was one of them and was especially interested in problem of deaf. He felt deaf people could be taught to lip-read, perhaps to speak, if they could see over and over the characteristic mouth movements connected with sounds. So in 1892 he began to shoot and project close-ups of mouths articulating short phrases- Vive la France or Je vous aime (Barnouw, 1974).
3

http://web.bryant.edu/~pkuppers/sirens.htm

Experiencing Design and Technology

The machine is not an it animated, worshipped, and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. ( Haraway, 1991:180). In a very basic sense, the term technology conjures up the objects we call tools or machine. Tools signify culture and civilization, distinguishing Man from other species of life and providing evidence of his superior relation to the natural world (Terry, 1997). Technology cannot be understood outside its context of design and use. After all, it takes know how not only to make machines, but also to use them: thus one cannot isolate machines away from their users or designer, nor their location and dynamics in culture and human life (Brooks, 1983). Here in this essay technology is defined more appropriately in terms of computer/human interface, that is, in terms of how computers help to accomplish tasks of configuring, effecting, mediating, and embodying social relations (Terry, 1997). Frascara notices: Experiencing is a constructive activity. That is, a user experiences is constructed of two equal parts: what the communicator provides, and what the communication brings to the interactionIn fact, if we can learn to access peoples experiences (past, current and potential), then we can make user experience the source of inspiration and ideation for design. And by making user experience the source of inspiration, we are better able to design for experiencing. It shows that the greater the collegian support, the greater the users computer self efficacy (Deng, 2004). Its then very important that the person having a disability feels supported in his (her) work and ideas by the people is working with. This can be applied to humans interaction as it has been shown with the movie dancer in the dark before in this essay but also between a computer/human interaction. That means if the machine can lack the impairment of the person then this person will be able to design and create. User autonomy is a powerful variable because discretion in how the computer is used in work has implications both for the work process and computer use. Conceptualized as selfdetermination, autonomy is positively related to innovation (Deng, 2004).

Computers have many beneficial impacts, but unfortunately, frustration is a universal experience for computer users and designers (Ceapura, 2004). Timing, bugs or bad designed interfaces make users feeling irritated and stressed during their navigation and work. The case its even more complex for someone being limited by an impairment. They have to deal with their own problems as well. For helping them to reach autonomy and access to all interactive technology new tools have been developed. It is called assistive technologies: Assistive technologies are products used by people with disabilities to help accomplish tasks that they cannot accomplish otherwise or could not do easily otherwise. These are human-computer interfaces adaptable to certain disabilities. But assume to the wide range of product available on the market now not everyone with a similar disability will use the same assistive technologies or have the same level of expertise in using those technologies. In the same time lots of people without a disability use some of these tools to assist in their work for a better and easier utilization. Here is a brief list of these technologies their description4: Alternative keyboards or switches are a way of creating keystrokes that Braille and refreshable Braille: Braille is a system using six to eight raised Scanning software: the user selects a desired item by hitting a switch when Screen magnifiers: magnifies a portion of the screen for easier viewing. Screen readers: that interprets what is displayed on a screen and directs it Speech synthesis: involves production of digitized speech from text. Digital hearing aids

appear to come from the standard keyboard. dots in various patterns to represent letters and numbers that can be read by the fingertips. the desired item is highlighted or announced.

either to speech synthesis for audio output, or to refreshable Braille for tactile output.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Some others products more complex have been created or in development: The database STAITHY. Its an underlying framework with two-factorial design.5 The LC Technologies Eyegaze System provides an eye-controlled humancomputer interface (HCI), allowing people to interact with computers by pointing with their eyes6.

Cyberkinetics has developed a prototype device which could allow people to manipulate certain objects with their thoughts. This is to provide a facsimile of vision to the blind. The potential for this technology appears to be vast, and direct brain-computer interfaces may be common within as little as a decade.7 The essay will go further in details about some assistive technologies available on

the market for the internet.

5

http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw28/gappa.html http://www.eyegaze.com/doc/cathuniv.htm 7 http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Nov/bch20031110022586.htm

6

http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/

At last disability affects the person in several ways as dependency and reliability to others but it can have an impact on their awareness and sensitivity about what people very needs as professional designers noticed that designers who have a physical or sensory disability are particularly well-tuned to the subtleties that determine whether what is built will work well for those for whom it is intended (Lifchez, 2002). Maybe it is because they have to face this disability then they understand things better than other people. They see essential elements of information processing and have also the knowledge that is brought to the situation.

Disability and the Net

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." -- Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

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We are witnesses to an epochal transformation in the analytically distinct domains of production and communication. Its a twinned transformation: from mass production/mass communication to network production/network communication. These transformations are being exponentially accelerated by digital tools that make it possible to access text, audio, visual and database information in an interactive environment. Actors now participate in complex digital technologies consisting of the internet, intranets, extranets, web sites, virtual collaborative workplaces and the like (bach and Stark, 2004). The rapid development of the web, alongside our increasing use of word processors for creating documents, has increased the volume of time we spend on a computer for research, work or for spare times. As with reading printed material, there are many different ways of reading electronic texts, which may be determined by the readers purpose, skills, or circumstances of reading (Mary C. Dyson, 2004). In this case if the person is with an impairment it has to be able to access to the same information than others. Research on the web is easier, faster and it allows the user to travel around the world at home. The vast majority of persons with disabilities used to remain outsiders in their own local lives, prevented from participating in public events and discourse. The Internet profoundly changed the ability of persons with disabilities to access public spaces and conversations. It also brought shops into their houses avoiding any inconveniences of motion to these places. But it has to deal with other problems as accessibility and autonomy in the use of the navigation through internet. Therefore design of such web sites requires a carefully thinking to be accessible to everyone and their structure must be kept the clearest possible, must includes options and tools for the help of these people. Asking how disability is constructed on websites necessitates first a description of the area studied. A website is a text, an "artifact that has been interpreted holistically as a form, style, or genre" (Lindlof, 1995, p. 51). Textual analysis involves situating texts historically, in relationship to each other, and within the authors' and readers' frames of experience. The values of web-based instruction reflect its flexibilities. Traditional computer based instructional programs present information in a linear fashion. Flexibility

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and accessibility offer learners a rich exploration environment and encourages them to navigate by association (Chen and Macredie, 2004). On another hand, in an economical perspective it is easy to argue that it makes sense to make your Web site accessible. Almost all Web technology can be made accessible with no impact on the visual appearance. It is a way to increase your market as well. The number of people who have disabilities worldwide is significant. In America alone, it is estimated that 54 million people have a disability. You may be missing that market segment by not paying attention to accessibility8. To make more accessible web sites it exists webmasters labeled disability websites designers. Assistive technologies have been developed as well for the use of the internet. Text browsers: some of them such as Lynx are an alternative to graphical Visual notification: users receive a visual alert of a warning or error Voice browsers: systems which allow voice-driven navigation. Speech recognition: an input method in some voice browsers. user interface browsers. They can be used with screen readers for people who are blind message that might otherwise be issued by sound.

Conclusion
8

www.jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm

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Metaphors associated to perception and experiences allow an understanding of the imagination and the creativity in disables peoples mind. Our culture is surrounded of examples of people who manage to succeed in our society despite their impairment and this difference their own identity. Lots of assistive technologies have been designed to help the disabled people but the speed of innovation in this area goes so fast that people with a disability always feel a bit let down. Internet offers a powerful avenue for persons with disabilities to create their identities, organize their life, converse, access to networks, and address common problems. Disability is a huge subject to talk about and this project was an attempt to fill the gap between people with a disability and others and this paper tries to bring on light some information about these people. It shows that its a legitime area of study and other projects could go deeper in the methodology talking more about sociology, culture, political or economical impacts on the disabled population. On a personal level, the project fills my own ignorance about the disability world. It also fulfils my criteria for doing disability research. The result contributes to give an idea of how these people experience technology. This short essay shows the subject's obvious limitations. These are the needs of more space to describe the whole sort of disabilities. The research focused on one of the many areas that disability brings problems. There is another important point not discussed here cause to the subject matter, although certain aspects of the obstacles to disabled people's participation may be amenable to measurement, physical access, for example, there are other issues which are not; namely, prejudice. In employment despite well drafted and publicised equal opportunities policies in many cases the employment of disabled workers is, in the final analysis, dependent upon the judgment and attitudes of one or two key individuals. Prejudice and attitudes are notoriously difficult to measure (Barnes 1995).

Bibliography

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Frascara, Jorge. 2002. Design and Social Sciences: Making Connections, London and New York: contemporary trends institute. Coyne, Richard. 1995. Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Roszak, Theodore 1986. The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computer and the True Art of Thinking, Lutterworth Press, Cambridge. Stone, Allucquere Rosanne, 1995. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Terry, Jennifer and Calvert, Melodie 1997.Processed Lives: Gender and Technology in everyday life, London and NY Haraway, Donna 1991. A cyborg Manifesto: Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the late Twentieth Century, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature. Lindlof, T. 1995. Qualitative communication research methods . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. X. Deng 2004. Computer self-efficacy in an ongoing use context. Behaviour and Information Technology, 23, 395-412 Ceaparu, Irina 2004. Determining causes and severity of end-user frustration. International journal of human-computer interaction, 17, 333-356. Chen and Macredie 2004. Cognitive modeling of student learning in web-based instructional programs. . International journal of human-computer interaction, 17, 375-402

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Dyson 2004, How physical text layout affects reading from screen. Behaviour and Information Technology, 23, 377-393 Bach and Stark 2004. link, search, interact. The co-evolution of NGOs and Interactive Technology. Theory, culture ad society 2004, 21, 101-117. Barnes, C. 1995. Measuring Disablement in Society: Hopes and Reservations London,Hurst and Co. Elaine Ostroff, Mark Limont, and Daniel G. Hunter, Building a World Fit for People: Designers with Disabilities at Work, A publication of Adaptive Environments Center. Available on
http://www.adaptiveenvironments.org/adp/profiles/book_cover.php.

Corker, M. 1998. Disability in a postmodern world. In T. Shakespeare (Ed.), The disability reader: Social science perspectives (pp. 221-233). London: Cassell. Barnouw, Erik 1974. Documentary: A history of the Non-Fiction Film. Oxford University Press. Filmography: Von Trier, Lars, 2000, Dancer in the Dark.

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