How accessibility can still be a challenge in a digital world?
When it comes to technology, we might not immediately think that accessibility could be as much as a challenge as it is in “the real world”.
There’s still a long way to go before we can call barriers-free the digital world however, one of the most fascinating aspects of tech innovation combined with new media is its inherent potential to bridge gaps and scale up the quality of life way faster than in other circumstances of life.
An example in this sense is the eye-tracking Swedish tech company Tobii AB Dynavox which just launched a solution with a set of popular apps that are built for navigation through gaze alone.
Together with d-bur, an Israelian company specialized in the development of assistive technologies, the company’s new suite of apps includes: Facebook, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google, Google Calendar, Google Translate, Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, MSN and Android Messages. The new apps should be available on compatible devices now.
Skipping through the whole privacy issues it might entail, I think it’s a significant step to finally have a technology built with accessibility as a goal from the start.
In short: less diving bells and more butterflies.*
*The diving bell and the butterfly (Jean Dominique Bauby,1997)
Sources: TechCrunch, Cision PR Newswire
