We are (not?) Assistive Technology users

[deborah]

Kill Accessibility, a blog post by Gary Barber, made me put me head down on my desk and take several deep breaths.

Barber makes some excellent points about some of the limitations of the accessibility movement. He talks about how accessibility shouldn't be an afterthought, but incorporated into good web design and universal design. He talks about how for many, "accessible" has come to mean "for people with visual impairments". He talks about the weakness of the way checklists are used, and about the low social value of improving your website's checklist.

So why does Barber lose me at the very beginning of his blog post? His first content heading: "We are not Assistive Technology users." I repeat that: "We are not Assistive Technology users." He goes on to say The old UX catch call is never truer here – we are not the users. The disparity between us and the people we are really working for, with accessibility, is sometimes just too great for us to even get a idea of what it is like, no matter how many videos of people using assitive technology we see.

Who is this "we" about whom you are speaking, Able-Bodied Man?

Last weekend I was in a room full of accessibility professionals, about half of whom had visible disabilities. The director of the WAI has a disability. There are people with disabilities on all of the web accessibility mailing lists I'm on. That's not even counting the other parts of the web development community I interact with, the parts that don't have any particular concern with accessibility and yet still have a multitude of developers with disabilities.

We are here. You just aren't talking to us. You just aren't listening.

Maybe the first step in the accessibility community is to recognize that some members of your own community are also the users, and to listen to us when we speak. I don't speak for all computer users with disabilities. I speak for exactly one: myself. But if you don't even know that we are here, each of us speaking for ourselves, you sure as hell are not going to be able to serve anyone in the community.

Comments

[katta]

I hope you told him so! It's something that definitely needs to be said, and there's every indication that he'd listen.

[deborah]

I did, and I also thought there was every indication that he would listen -- but my comments never made it through moderation, so I guess not. Maybe I was too harsh, I don't know, but I reread my comment several times to rewrite it to make it less aggressive and less upset. I mean, I clearly disagreed, but at least I *think* I get politely and respectfully.

I hope at least it sits on his back burner and eventually he figures it out. In general, I have found that there is a large cadre of able-bodied accessibility professionals who are hostile to accessibility professionals with disabilities, but all we can do is keep speaking out and being members of the community and hope that eventually it sinks in that we are all on the same side.

[katta]

In general, I have found that there is a large cadre of able-bodied accessibility professionals who are hostile to accessibility professionals with disabilities

That... makes no sense. I'm trying to figure out ways that it would make sense, but it just doesn't - well, not beyond the personal level of persons A and B just plain being hostile to each other, and that wouldn't cover a large cadre.

I'm not doubting you, mind. I just can't seem to go beyond "Bwuh? But WHY?"

[libskrat]

Sounds like classic {privilege}splain to me. Able-Bodied-Boy is the default, therefore All Are Like Him, as he will 'splain ad nauseam.

[deborah]

The best parallel I could come up with in my mind -- and one in which I am absolutely sure I must have been on the guilty side more than once -- is when white, middle-class social justice advocates (teachers, non-profit workers, etc.) say something like, "The problem is that we aren't from the communities we are serving, so we don't know how to communicate with them or really understand their needs!"

And then the responses are totally hostile when social justice advocates who are people of color or come out of the communities being served say, "Hello? Some of us are absolutely from the communities we are serving, why do you spend more time listening to us?"

While I can't think of any particular occasions in which I've been that person, I'll be a monkey's uncle if I haven't done it countless times.

Doesn't make it any more frustrating to be on the receiving end.

[libskrat]

Happens in academic librarianship too. "We're not like faculty!" Except we damn well are.

[synecdochic]

Gah. There is nothing in the world that annoys me more than this perception. What, PWD can't be developers too? Auuuuugh.

[deborah]

No, didn't you know? We are all scared of computers and need to have been introduced to us by loving beneficiaries, who only want to enfranchise us so we can have a window into the real world from our sheltered workshops.

Also, no grandmothers understand technology.

(Which is flip, I understand. There is a very large community of PWD who haven't got access to computers or other professional tools and are very well served by that entry-level training. But at the same time, there's a very large pool of PWD who are extremely technologically savvy, even if you don't count the developers. The Deaf community, on the whole, contain many early adopters of handheld devices, for example. Many people with severe mobility impairments have more professional and social interaction because of the Internet than would have been feasible without it, and are accordingly more proficient with it then many TABs. And... I'm sorry. I didn't realize the choir practice was over. I'd better stop my preaching. *sheepish*)

[keeva]

yeah, as a formerly-active web accessibility advocate, i found it was real easy for able-bodied developers (including myself at times) to think of two groups, "us" the developers and "them" the users who include disabled users.

real easy, and real wrong, of course.

[deborah]

right. I think the best parallel to keep in my mind is the one that I thought of as white anti-racists who forget that there are POCs in the anti-racist community; or middle-class social justice advocates; straight allies of the queer community... In general, when you're working with any community that doesn't have privilege, but you yourself have privilege, it's sometimes difficult to remember that the reason you hear more people like you speaking is because the systemic structures privilege practically by definition make your voice easier to hear. It doesn't mean that the people whose allies you are aren't speaking, it means that systemically forces coordinate to silence their voices.

Which makes it even more important to shut up and listen, but having been the person with privilege and no pants in other such fights, I'm trying to be sympathetic.

I'm angry, but at least intellectually sympathetic.