The Meaning of Empathy and Inclusion and How Accessible and Usable Digital Technology Assists
An introduction to the meaning of empathy and inclusion and how accessible and usable digital technology assists to create an equitable experience while attempting to avoid certain negative consequences.
Empathy Can Be Defined As:
The ability to understand a diverse group of people by taking time to listen and learn to help create an equitable experience for everyone.
Empathy can also be described like “the base of scaffolding” added to a person’s education that can be incorporated along with inclusion and accessibility for digital technology to also help create an equitable experience for all.
Inclusion Can Be Defined As:
The ability to unconditionally include everyone with or without a disability. This includes people with a visible, invisible or temporary disability as well as people with diverse ethnic backgrounds and gender differences.
Examples of a Visible Disability:
- A person who is blind or visually impaired using a white cane.
- A person who is hearing impaired wearing hearing aids or who is being assisted by a signer.
Example of an Invisible Disability:
- A person who has suffered a traumatic brain injury possibly from a stroke or accident.
Examples of a Temporary Disability:
- A person who has a broken bone such as an arm or leg.
- A person who is recovering from a major surgery or procedure.
Usability and Accessibility Issues
Example of a Usability Issue:
A user interface with a non-intuitive design impacts people with disabilities who use assistive technology as well as people without a disability who are first time users to the application. For example, a person without a disability attempts to find one part of a user interface and locate information on it or a person who is blind and uses a screen reader also attempts to locate information in that same application and both give up after trying unsuccessfully.
Therefore, even though the user interface does not have technical accessibility issues as described in Success Criteria in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, it clearly has usability design issues thus preventing certain users from locating information successfully and efficiently.
Example of an Accessibility Issue:
An email publication application did not generate keyboard accessible hyperlinks in email messages. This prevented keyboard only users from activating the links. Therefore they could not locate the website to participate in the activities that were available on the webpage. This simple user interface accessibility issue impacted both keyboard only users and screen reader users and took a couple of years to resolve. This simple user interface accessibility issue could have been avoided if designers and developers were more educated in accessibility and making resolutions to these accessibility issues a priority.
Built-In Assistive Technologies
To gain an understanding of what it is like for people who use assistive technology with digital technology a person needs to try out the built-in assistive technologies that are available in the different operating systems.
Examples of Built-In Assistive Technologies:
- Microsoft Narrator screen reader- located in Ease of Access Center
- Android TalkBack Screen reader- for Android users, located in Settings under Accessibility
- Apple VoiceOver screen reader for macOS- located in Settings under Accessibility
- Apple VoiceOver screen reader for iOS- located in Settings under Accessibility
In order to better emulate how a person who is blind or has low vision uses their computer or mobile device a person needs to learn how to interact with digital technology using some form of assistive technology only. For instance, while your screen reader is running attempt to interact with the digital technology you are using by having your monitor turned off and using your keyboard only. This will give you a better understanding of what a person who is blind experiences using assistive technology with digital technology for their job or in their personal life.
However, screen readers only represent one of the many types of assistive technologies that help people with blindness or low vision. There are other types of assistive technologies that assist people who have other forms of disabilities. Since there are numerous types of assistive technologies, I encourage people to try out and experience these different assistive technologies for themselves.
Learning About Empathy and Inclusion May Help Avoid Uncomfortable Situations
Learning about empathy and inclusion may help to avoid getting into uncomfortable situations such as having to tell a customer or employee with a disability that modifications to digital technologies are not worth the effort it will take to enhance equality for people with disabilities. This reason may be given because it is assumed that making these needed modifications is a waste of other peoples’ time to do this work. They would rather not do the modifications thus causing the people with disabilities to be excluded instead of being included and making it an equitable experience for them also. In reality accessible, usable and intuitive digital technology is a valuable and beneficial investment for everyone. It is definitely not charity to enable a person who is disabled to be productive and contribute to the success for all. However, if people are constantly excluded this continued exclusion can lead to mental or physical health issues for them. In addition, the outcome of this exclusion can negatively affect family and friends of the person being excluded due to the added stress of the situation placed on everyone involved and concerned.
Therefore, in order to decrease exclusion and increase inclusion for all people with a disability let’s practice empathy and inclusion in our daily lives to promote equitable experiences. This can be easily accomplished by increasing accessibility and usability in digital technology when planned early in the design and development phase instead of retrofitting the accessibility issue later on after it has been reported and causes frustration for the users. This includes performing the required and necessary automated accessibility evaluations as well as manual testing by people with a variety of disabilities using a range of assistive technologies with different operating systems and a variety of web browsers.
For instance, some accessibility issues are simple to resolve such as adding a missing quote in the code for certain accessibility attributes like HTML IMG alt and Grommet a11yTitle.
People Should Not be Discouraged From Participating In Digital Technology
I believe people should not be discouraged by others from participating in digital technology simply because there are accessibility/usability issues preventing them from equally participating and contributing. If a person has the mindset of attempting to compare the cost of remediating an accessibility/usability issue compared to the perceived value of a person experiencing the issue, then they should consider that the person experiencing these issues is not being given an equal chance to demonstrate their complete abilities and skills. This makes that person feel they are not worth the effort and their contributions are not valued.
Actually in order for a person to not be put in the situation of excluding others they should make an effort to design, develop, purchase and deploy accessible and usable digital technology for everyone.
Demonstrate Empathy by Educating People on the Topic of Empathy
Let’s demonstrate empathy by educating people on the topic of empathy and help reduce accessibility, usability and non-intuitive digital technology user interfaces. This will help to create an equitable environment for all to flourish in their personal and professional lives.
In closing I chose a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that, I believe, aligns with this particular topic.
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?”
If you have any comments or feedback, can you please send an email to Bill Tipton since unfortunately the comments are closed to my blog site.
Bill
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
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