Today I went to the Londroid (London Android) Office RNIB Hackathon that was sponsored by Blue Via. The goal was to help app developers to learn more about the needs of blind people.
This was a great event and I would like to thank everyone who made it possible and the kind people from the RNIB, particularly Robin Spink who listened politely to my somewhat contrarian views.
The day started with several lectures which put forward the problems that blind and partially sighted people face and some of the views of the RNIB. Although informative I found them difficult to digest because of the entitlement culture of the speakers who would often tell us what was “acceptable”.
The provision of many services for disabled people is a pure social cost that does not produce economic benefit for the provider. For example, in the absence of legislation, the market would not provide ramps to every office building just in-case a wheelchair user should get a job there.
Therefore to advance their agenda, advocates for the disabled get laws passed and then provide services to big business to help them comply. This is approach is wholly commendable for commodity and monopoly services such as gas, electricity and operating systems but not apps.
The reason that it is the wrong approach for apps is that it presupposes that there is a market failure and that the only way that accessible software will be produced is if non-disabled people subsidise it in the same way as non-disabled people subsidise the cost of the disabled ramps.
There is, to my mind, no evidence of a market failure. Blind people can be customers just like sighted people, they have credit cards and mobile phones and can buy software. We are told that there are 1.8 million blind and partially sighted people in the UK alone that could be a profitable market for the solo developer.
The goal of any business is to minimise costs and maximise profits (or social benefits – if the developers work for free).
The problem is not writing code; the problem is building good applications that meet the needs of a reasonably sized segment. To do this we need many things that the RNIB can provide either directly or in a coordinating role.
- Cost reduction
- simple design guidelines
- software libraries for common tasks
- market research
- customer archetypes
- segmentation by disability, age, gender, location, tech use …
- example use cases (eg wayfaring, clothes matching, cooking)
- blind and partially sighted testers
- publicity, marketing communications and app discovery processes
- international co-operation to globalize markets
The biggest impediment to this may be the culture of the RNIB. As a pressure group it has been very successful (and quite rightly!) at getting the tax payer and other service users to pay. It might be a too much of a shift for it to ask its constituency to open their wallets.
At this point I should say that I am judging a whole organisation by a few presentations and it is the first time they have attempted to engage directly with developers directly. It is a great thing they are doing and I commend them for it. I would also like to thank Kevin of Londroid for organising the event.
Finally, I would like to thank the blind and partially sighted people who came today. It is simply not possible to develop any software without access to real users and they made it real for us.
I am sure that the combination of powerful technology, brilliant users and keen entrepreneurs will produce great products.
Dr James Bayley 
Nice Post! Really informative and well written!
While you’re absolutely correct that there is a compelling business case, you’re underestimating the value of apps.
As you heard from some of the visually impaired people present, the kind of things that are a mild added covenience for most people can be a total lifeline to others, and their only means of accessing that information.
It mostly isn’t about providing bespoke solutions or content either, hence the prize on offer for making an existing app more accessible.
If it was the case that the goals of business are purely profitability and not social benefit then you would not have things like working week, minimum wage and trade description legislation for example. There are more important things at play than an individual business’ balance sheet.
The reason for legislation being passed is not so that advocacy groups can sell services to big businesses. It is because access to information, culture and communication technology is a human right under then UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities, which hundreds of countries, including the UK, have ratified. That’s why people feel entitled – because they are.
Accessibility is not about advocacy groups providing services to big business, it is about developers and designers avoiding harmful barriers. All that’s needed is enough understanding of your audience to know what those barriers are.
The number of people who have that knowldege is less than the number who need to for their day to day work, which is where services come in. Market forces, supply and demand. People wanting to make their products accessible came first, before both accessibility consultancy and legislation.
– A bizarre and unsupported statement.
Thank you for drawing my attention to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is a particularly interesting because it seems to the source of the the term “reasonable accommodation”. I am not sure that you are right that legislation that applies to business is a result of this Human Rights act, in British Law the primary role of human rights is to protect the citizen from the state. The regulation of private relationships between businesses and individuals is a separate matter.
A last point – there is huge market failure. Over 20% of the population are disabled, and almost all apps are inaccessible to some segments of that demographic. Not because they have to be, but because of lack of awareness.
It doesn’t have to be that way, just look at the web industry, where there is a strong developer culture good standards-based code. Many of the web principles are just as applicable to mobile.. even simple.and free things like choice of colours or wording can prevent your app from becoming inaccessible to very large numbers of people.
– Wikipedia
It seems likely that the situation that you describe is not evidence of market failure in the sense of my post. Most apps are a complete failure any time spent making them assessable is time wasted to no benefit to either the developer or the public. If a developer wants to invest time and effort in accessibility then they should do this in successful apps.
James
Ramps in buildings, drop down kerbs and lifts are all installed for legal reasons, however they should not be seen as a cost paid for by the able bodied in case a wheel-chair user might need them, they should be seem as an aid to a whole variety of users including: wheel-chairs, baby buggies, wheely suitcases and goods trolleys. They are a benefit to the whole community and if designed and installed during major building works will add little or nothing to the cost.
Similarly ICT accessibility can be designed and developed easily on a major build inexpensively and normally with significant benefits to the wider user base.
PS I was a the Hackathon on Saturday.
In my post I said that legislation to impose social costs was “wholly commendable” in some circumstances so we would seem to be in perfect agreement.
It is disappointing that a post whose purpose was to advocate the potential benefits of for-profit and social entrepreneurship should only draw comments justifying the legislative approach – something the post never challenged.
Just to reiterate.
Organisations in the disability industry should strive to reduce the costs and increase the revenues of those who make software for the disabled. This will result in more accessible software being written.
The post listed several ways in which this could be done.
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