Accessibility to the physical environment

Accessibility to the physical environment largely concerns the overcoming of physical barriers. It often relates to people with disabilities but can also extend to the making of everyday activities more accessible to ordinary people.

Accessibility is a very important part of the inclusion of people with disabilities. An accessible barrier free environment is the first step towards fulfilling the right of people with disabilities to participate in all areas of community life. Accessibility is a very broad term covering all aspects of assuring that disabled people can participate and have the same choices as non-disabled community members.

1. Prosthetic limbs

Prosthetic limbs are devices that replace a missing body part. Prosthetics deal with the science of using mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or congenital abnormality. 

Craddock (2003) views accessibility as a relation between a person’s functional capacity and the design and demands of the physical environment. Prosthetic limbs promote accessibility in allowing physically impaired people to perform functions that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. Michael McLoughlin from John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory explains that the aim of such technologies is to ‘assist those who have lost the ability to use their natural limbs to have as normal a life as possible.’

In addition to the standard artificial limb for everyday use, many amputees or congenital patients have special limbs and devices to aid in the participation of sports and recreational activities. Oscar Pistorius for example (above), uses modified 'Flex-Foot Cheetah' carbon fibre transtibial prostheses when competing in track and field athletics. This reflects a social pressure in the development of such artificial protheses (Kling, 2007).

Another example of a prosthetic device is the cochlear or ‘bionic’ ear. The cochlear ear is a prosthetic substitute for hearing that provides a sense of sound to people who are profoundly deaf. People with cochlear implants may find a radical improvement in their daily lives. The cochlear ear creates accessibility to sound information thus providing deaf people with information for safety, communication, balance, orientation and mobility and promoting interaction within their environment and with other people (Gantz, C & Turner CW, 2004). Having accessibility to auditory information provides the deaf with sensory information that will help them become more independent. 


The future for prostheses

Within the scientific community and particularly within science fiction, there has been growing consideration to the use of advanced prostheses to replace healthy body parts with artificial mechanisms and systems to improve function. In particular, new plastics and alloys used in construction have caused significant advancements in prosthetic technologies. For instance, prosthetics have been applied to non-human subjects such as dogs and sheep.

Consider the links below. Both videos satisfy the claim that: 'competent behaviour is the favourable outcome of any person acting in an environmental context' (Kling, 1999). However, the morality and desirability of such technologies are still being debated. The use of stem-cell research (as seen in the Serif Industries clip) is particularly relevant. Despite its controversy, the potential medical benefits of human pluripotent stem cell technology are compelling and worthy of pursuit in accordance with appropriate ethical standards (United States National Institute for Health, 2000).

2. Voice-recognition technology

Voice recognition technology converting speech into text is another hot topic in the technology world at the moment. In particular, the advent of Siri, the automated personal assistant in the iPhone 4S, has opened up a whole world of opportunities to increase technological accessibility, especially in relation to the physically impaired.

Siri allows a person to perform a wide variety of tasks hands and eyes free. The application uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Web services. While not particularly intuitive and also lacking functionality in many countries, Siri’s voice recognition technology has huge potential in providing the physically impaired with access to modern mobile technology.

The application of voice technologies describe a 'new ergonomics of communication' in which a digital society begins to lack communicative obstacles and is based upon social terms built upon technological interfaces and independent of limitations stemming from biology or traditionally understood dysfunctions (Maj & Derda-Nowakowski, 2010).   

In the same vein as Siri, an iPhone app called Deaftel will let people who are deaf, hearing or speech impaired make phone calls to hearing people without a third person acting as a relay operator. The application uses similar technology to Siri and converts a person’s voice to text, sending it as a message. The Deaftel app has been received to critical acclaim and has potential to significantly improve the ability for deaf and hearing impaired users to communicate on mobile devices.

Not far in the future, some experts foresee other voice-activated appliances and home systems that control thermostats and alarms. Already available are programs that use a person's unique voiceprint to determine if he or she is a gadget's rightful owner, and thus authorized to access data or make online purchases.

3. Driverless car

The Google Driverless Car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for driverless cars. Development of the project comes after significant advances in robotics and automation in the 21^st century.

Today, there is an increasing interest in robotic devices that can operate autonomously in a dynamic environment. Such artificial intelligence provides physical accessibility to people who could not otherwise perform certain tasks. There is also potential for such devices to provide automated efficiency unmatchable by humans. In a social context, the increased automation and efficiency of such devices is indicative our contemporary digital society. Increased awareness of accessibility issues for people with physical and perceptive disabilities is a new form of global thinking arising due to evolving communication standards (Maj & Derda-Nowakowski, 2010) 

The development of automation and robotics has substantially broken down barriers hindering physical accessibility. However, it is important from a social context to be aware of the potential consequences of advanced automation. While traditional ergonomics ensured comfort mainly for users without disabilities, contemporary designs are far more revolutionary and experimental (Maj & Derda-Nowakowski, 2010.) According to the New York Times, driverless vehicles and automation technology in particular have advanced ‘so quickly that it is in danger of outstripping existing law.’

Google’s Driverless car explores both human computer interaction and the development of automation and robotics from a socio-cultural perspective. There are no ideal interfaces - as we still need to ‘learn machines’ - but the preferred ones are social in nature and stem from specific patterns of culture (Iwarsson & Stahl, 2001). This is an example of the ‘cyborgisation’ of culture, described McLuhan (1964) in his classical idea of the extensions of man. 

The development of the Google Car reflects the problem orientated nature of accessibility in social informatics (Iwarsson & Stahl, 2001). The strong emphasis on ‘real world’ development, design, development and ICT is directly reflective of growing problems in the automotive industry and in society in general. For instance, consider: the number of car-crashes caused by human error road congestion in metropolitan areas, car theft. Automated cars may soon solve many of these issues.

As computers and sensors become highly sophisticated, cars will inevitably handle more and more of the work of driving. By 2030, it is estimated that they will control all of it. When cars know where they are, where they need to go, and can automatically steer, brake and accelerate, some ask, what’s left for humans to do? The answer: relax, browse the net, watch TV, or enjoy the scenery.

However, there are major issues regarding legality and financial issues. Most laws assume a human is behind the wheel; if there is a mishap, whom do you sue? This is just one of many issues faced with the rapid development of robotics and automation in our current society.