The above device is being discontinued. I presume to fit in line with digital devices that no longer need a landline. It’s due to finish at the end of February. I have a blind client who depends on this device to use her answerphone and access phonelines with auto answerting systems.
This raises the point. Does progress always have to involve changing the status quo? In disability accessbility this is a key question. Sudden and often inexplainable changes are foisted on the disability. Let me give you some recent examples .
- smart speakers cannot access emails since 2015
- TV guides no longer give information on local regional programmes
- smart speakers don’t switch on TV’s , even though they can switch them off
- smart speakers can no longer search for phone numbers and ring them
In the UK we have this thing called GDPR ( General Data Protection Regulation) which is there to protect individual rights. But when it actually blocks the rights of disabled person communication it becomes a barrier to access. At least I think some of the above changes are due to GDPR. All the above were once done on smart speakers.
Technicians love to change things. Again for disabled people change can mean the difference between access and non-access. Especially if you are blind and using a screenreader. I was helping someone this week who was blind and he was trying to navigate ChatGPT and there are broken and orphan links all over the site. The webpage looks visually fine but obviously changes have been made and not removed they remained and they are “visible” ( excuse the pun) to a screen reader! Making access to the site less navigable to a blind person.
If consideration is for all surely standard practise should be the inclusion of disabled people into the design process of any website or equipment to check whether it works for them. Apart from providing employment to disabled people it could give valuable inclusive practises that could be vital for the growing numbers of disabled people int the world.
AccessAbility Solutions 