The difference between mainstream and specialized can be really stark. For example, the epub format was developed with the help of the blindness community, so it was accessible from the start. Eventually, it became one of the formats available at Bookshare.org, with the result that Bookshare now has nearly a million titles for print-impaired readers, most of them submitted by publishers who created the epub e-books for their sighted readers. This massive proliferation of library reading matter for print-impaired readers wouldn't have been possible without epub being handy for both disabled people and nondisabled people.
By contrast, braille has no useful application for sighted people. From the time I became visually impaired, tech people have been promising a cheap braille display. Currently, the cheapest braille display is about $500, which makes it out of reach for most us.
OCR was developed for blind folks; it proved useful for sighted people too, so now it's dead cheap. Braille books aren't useful for sighted people, so they remain expensive.
I could go on and on. In a word, requiring accessible technology to be specialized for disabled people is simply a way to guarantee that most of the people that the tech is made for won't be able to use it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2020-12-01 08:50 am (UTC)By contrast, braille has no useful application for sighted people. From the time I became visually impaired, tech people have been promising a cheap braille display. Currently, the cheapest braille display is about $500, which makes it out of reach for most us.
OCR was developed for blind folks; it proved useful for sighted people too, so now it's dead cheap. Braille books aren't useful for sighted people, so they remain expensive.
I could go on and on. In a word, requiring accessible technology to be specialized for disabled people is simply a way to guarantee that most of the people that the tech is made for won't be able to use it.