...Cyberspace

We are thankful to Batya Friedman, James Moor and Mark Breimhorst for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

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...McKinley

Perry, Macken, and Scott are all affiliated with the Archimedes Project at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University; McKinley is affiliated with the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center, Department of Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto as well as with the Archimedes Project.

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...disabilities.

A potentially tragic case is the graphical user interface (GUI) problem for blind computer users. Fifteen years ago computers standardly output information on a screen with 24 rows and 80 columns, each cell filled with an ascii character. Such text could be automatically converted to speech by screen-reader programs. Blind computer users usually can adapt to a reading speed of two to three times normal talking speed. Blind computer users could work as efficiently as their sighted co-workers, using the same hardware and software, augmented only by the screen-reader.

The rise of the graphical user interface, of the sort introduced by Macintosh and made ubiquitous by Microsoft Windows, with its icons and multiple windows, has been a disaster for blind computer users. Text-based screen-readers cannot handle the graphic displays. Considerable ingenuity is now being invested in providing an interface to the graphical user interface for blind users. But these efforts are taking time. Access programs for MS Windows 3.1 became available at about the same time as the program was superseded by Windows 95. Much remains to be done before blind users have anything approaching parity with sighted users. In the meantime, many blind workers cannot be as productive as they once were, and some have even lost their jobs. This problem is discussed more extensively in Appendix I.

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...accomplish.

In the formulation of these definitions we were assisted by comments by James H. Moor, Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth College (personal communication) and an essay by R. Amundson (see footnote 3).

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...mind.

In his essay, Amundson is concerned to point out that disabilities simply do not fit many of the medical categories under which they are subsumed. Disabilities are not diseases (although they are often the results of diseases); being disabled is not a form of being unhealthy or frail or chronically ill. Amundson defines disability as ``lack of species typical functioning at the basic personal level.'' Although sympathetic to the civil-rights approach to issues of access, Admundson argues that the exact justification and scope of the right to access needs fuller examination by philosophers, who have been handicapped by inadequate conceptions of disability and handicap.

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...wasted.

Information about Roosevelt is from Hugh Gallagher's FDR's Splendid Deception[3]. We take this opportunity to thank Paul Longmore, Professor of History at San Francisco State University for his class on Disabilities and Society which introduced us to this book. Many of the ideas espoused here had their roots in discussions in this class and in papers Paul has presented, for example [6].

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...space''.

See [4] and [5] for a development of the framework for action implicit in this discussion.

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...ways

Or some other bodily part, such as one's head or fingers, if the wheelchair is powered.

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...infrastructure.

As Batya Friedman has pointed out (personal communication), our conception of a tool is also incomplete; it doesn't account for tools that enhance our mental capabilities as with an abacus to enhance mental calculations or knots in a string to enhance memory.

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...Scott

In 1988 Neil Scott proposed a ``Universal Access System'' (now called the Total Access System (TAS)) that would make it much simpler for disabled individuals to access any computer or computer-based device. This was in response to inquiries about compliance with the 1973 Rehabilitation Act as amended in 1986 by passage of Section 508 of Public Law 99-506. At that time Scott was a disability access engineer at California State University, Northridge. The Total Access System split the access problem into three separate and much simpler components; an ``accessor'' to handle the specific access requirements of the disabled individual, a Total Access Port (TAP) to provide a standardized interface to any computer or computer-based device, and a communications protocol to enable any accessor to communicate with any TAP. The Universal Access System project moved to Stanford in 1993 when Scott became one of the founding members of the Archimedes project. Ongoing research is improving the performance of the system and broadening the range of devices that can be controlled.

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...on.

The Accessor can also serve as a communication aid for face to face conversation by transferring the user's inputs to an output device such as a speech synthesizer or connecting directly with another accessor used by a conversational participant.

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...users.

For further information on the Scott/Archimedes implementation of the Total Access System see [7] and [8].

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...accessor.

The Archimedes Project has commercialized TAPs for Macs, Suns, IBM PCs, and Silicon Graphics Machines. TAPs are presently licensed through Stanford University and are being distributed through Synapse Corporation in San Rafael, California. These can be used with a variety of available speech accessors. Other accessors mentioned in this section, namely, combined speech and head pointing, specialized keyboards, input expansion routines, and eye-tracking are in use in the lab as prototypes. Other ongoing work includes the development of additional input devices, improved expansion routines for use in communication aids, and smaller and more portable accessors. A prototype accessible information kiosk is also under development.

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...it.

Amundson notes a more serious motivation behind such examples when they arise in a philosophical setting:

Well known problems of health care ethics have disability-related correlates. One is the problem of the ``social hijacking'' of resources by extremely needy people. Radical modifications in environmental design for extremely disabled people might be as expensive as radical medical procedures for gravely diseased people. Those unfamiliar with disability issues tend to concentrate on these dramatic examples [a] paralyzed ballerina or a (hypothetical) blind person who wants to become an airline pilot. What conceivable environmental modifications could support the ``rights'' of those people to their chosen professions? The fact is that such demands are not being made .([1],117)

Cases of social hijacking can certainly be constructed involving access to information. We provide no answer to the philosophical problem, merely sharing with Admundson the hope that clarification of concepts relating to disability will facilitate fuller philosophical examination of the basis of the right to access. In terms of practical problems of the expense of access, we think that in a large number of cases the TAS approach can reduce the cost of access significantly.

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...situation.

The cases mentioned in this section were taken from Enforcing the ADA; a Special Fifth Anniversary Status Report from the Department of Justice. It can be found on the Department of Justice web page, http://www.usdoj.gov, or by calling 1-800-514-0301 (voice) or 1-800-514-0383 (TDD).

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...format.

See Appendix I.

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...wheelchairs.

There are exceptions. We expect airports to have wheelchairs available for travelers who need them. The rationale is basically that some travelers who use wheelchairs will travel without them (sending their chairs in luggage), and that some travelers will need chairs in airports that might not need them elsewhere.

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