Different meanings for Accessibility at different times
Driven by Curiosity
Throughout my life, Accessibility meant different things to me at different points in time. Like any other child, I was fascinated by Science and Technology, especially regarding the science behind Radio, TV and any other communication devices.
My grandmother was always hiding screwdrivers as I had the habit of taking apart any radio sets that would come on my way. But it wasn’t just the tiny components that were getting smaller at every second that fascinated me. I also found it intriguing how people used, interacted, were affected by and reacted to radio and tv.
Connecting to the World
We used to live right in the middle of Brazil near the Capital. But despite being at the centre of all the decisions in the country, we still felt isolated. We didn’t have the vibrancy of the city ports. But Radio and TV broke this isolation. Communications Technology gave us access to the World. From the comfort of our living room, we watched the first moon landing, wars and revolutions, royal weddings and funerals. We worried apprehensively that parts of an artificial satellite called Skylab could fall over our roofs at any moment. We saw the falling of the Berlin Wall and watched several Olympics and World Cups live. At that point, Accessibility was, for me, about being able to receive information regardless of which geographical location you were.
From Electronics to Journalism
I also noticed people using radio in cleaver ways. I saw football fans carrying their portable radios to the matches to hear the narration better. They were using the Radio as an Assistive Technology. It also drove me to the conclusion that radio was the most accessible and inclusive medium of communication. It was affordable and gave them an auditory description of pitch scenes that they couldn’t see clearly from the arenas.
Still fascinated with Technology, I chose to study Electronics while attending the UK's equivalent to the 6th form. But that wasn’t enough for me. Once deciding to go to University, I opted for something that seemed very different: Journalism. This caused considerable bewilderment from everyone around me. Well-meaning people told me that I would have more opportunities in Technology than in Communications. They said, over and over, about how hard it would be to make a living as a Journalist. Indeed, they were very right in that respect. However, whatever you learn always benefits you with a different perspective to whatever you end up doing. After all, what I studied in my Journalism degree was not that detached from Technology.
Journalism is a field that depends on technological developments and is severely impacted by every advancement in technology, for good or bad.
While studying Journalism, I learnt that the web was actually predicted by a Canadian Philosopher almost 30 years before it was invented. In 1967, Marshall McLuhan said that the next medium would be an extension of our consciousness after Television. It would include television as its content and as an art form. He was also responsible for spreading the idea of the Global Village. Those concepts are important to the understanding that technology is driven by humans’ need to connect.
Becoming an Environmental Journalist
When it came to the end of my degree, I produced a Radio Programme covering the United Nations Conference on Environment in Rio. That was 1992, and Environmental Issues were already on the headlines. My understanding of Accessibility was making a very complicated subject easy to understand by the widest audience. Just like Digital Accessibility itself, it is not easy to talk about Environment and Sustainability. There are words with complex meanings, and they are both subjects that don’t fit well into the media values of immediacy and hype.
It takes a lot of repetition, several attempts to write about the same topic in different ways. It takes a lot of effort through a vast amount of time to bring to the mainstream the idea that, for instance, crawling insects and tiny bugs are just as important as cute furry animals, that wildflowers are not just pretty and an overgrown lawn is not messy but full with life. It also takes effort to demonstrate how digital products that are accessible are also more successful, robust, future proof and sustainable.
Instead of doing what most people would do in their early 20s and buying a car, I bought a computer. That was a decision that took me further and faster than any other wheelie vehicle could do.
As I continued through my career and education, Accessibility was for me to access information outside Library opening hours. Instead of doing what most people would do in their early 20s and buying a car, I bought a computer. That was a decision that took me further and faster than any other wheelie vehicle could do. For instance, having access to the web removed some of the difficulties I was facing while studying for my Master’s degree and working simultaneously. That situation even influenced my Dissertation topic, and I ended up writing a whole chapter about the use of the Internet for Environmental Education resources. Accessibility was then about exchanging information at any time, at a higher speed and lower cost than anyone could dream about ten years before.
As I was writing my Dissertation in the late 90s, I came across the story of how a European Eco-Schools programme benefitted from the internet and managed to get instant participation of 21,000 schools across 16 countries. I found out about Unesco’s Baltic Sea Project, an initiative that aimed at combining Environmental Education and Intercultural Learning while finding solutions to improve the water quality in the Baltic Sea via the web. I also crossed my path with several academics and developers with disabilities, who, since 1989, had been able to get autonomous access to technology through the use of screen readers and keyboard commands.
From Journalist to Accessibility Specialist: Making the Web Accessible again
It was not until working for the London Business School in 2000 as New Media Specialist that I came across Digital Accessibility as I understand today. A few months before, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which Tim Bernes Lee founded in 1994, had just launched the first version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). From those early days, Accessibility was already intrinsic to the very nature of the web, as Berners Lee says: “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability, is an essential aspect.”
As the web became more commercialised and more effort directed towards grabbing our attention, new barriers were created through poor colour contrast, locked font sizes, disrupting animations, pop-ups and whistles and bells that just did the opposite of reaching everyone. All the barriers that the Internet and the Web had removed were suddenly back through decisions that lacked awareness of how people are different. This is the equivalent of removing all ramps and replacing them with stairwells.
Digital Accessibility is now mainstream.
Despite all setbacks, Digital Accessibility is now mainstream. Operating Systems are being shipped with screen readers and customisable settings. The Mobile App market has become a competitive space for Image Recognition and Live Captions apps. Captioning and subtitling exist in almost every multimedia on the web. When we consider that out of 8 billion people globally, about 1.3 billion have differences seen as a disability by society; it only makes sense to embrace diversity at once and for all.
I see now Accessibility as revolutionary. It is not just about being able to perceive, operate and understand web content. It is also about affordability. It is about inclusion. It turns the old marketing and advertisement ideas about the target audience upside now. It is about all doors open, all welcomed, and with nobody being left out. After all, the web is for everyone!
