Accessibility is Becoming Mainstream

Abstract

Since 1976, when California State University Northridge (CSUN) began its Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference, there have been specialized conferences with an accessibility theme. The first ACM ASSETS Conference was held in 1994 when 22 papers were presented. The Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) began its conference in 1979. The first biennial International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (under a different name) was held in 1988. Accessibility focused journals have existed since at least 1986. This history demonstrates that accessibility has grown into a separate field in research and practice. While this is true, more and more, accessibility has become mainstream. The mainstreaming of accessibility can be seen in its integration into academic computing departments, HCI conferences, and conferences in supporting fields such as computer vision and natural language processing. Most importantly, accessibility can be seen in products and services provided by mainstream industry. One early example of this is the standardization of closed captioning for television. We now have built-in screen readers for iOS and Android devices and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices are being supplemented by lower cost AAC apps on mainstream touchscreen tablets. Technologies like video chat, personal texting, speech recognition, optical character recognition, and speech synthesis have their roots in solving accessibility problems. Slowly, accessibility is moving into the academic curriculum in computing departments [1]. Web design and development courses are starting to cover accessibility in the WCAG 2.0 and ARIA standards. There are capstone courses that focus on accessibility at several universities. There will always be a need for specialized accessibility related devices and services, but moving forward accessibility will be provided by mainstream companies and accessibility solutions will become valuable to everyone, disabled or not. Mainstream technology companies are asking for more people with disabilities to join their diverse workforces.