However, AT design encompasses more than designing products for those that are site impaired. Assistive technology, according to that oh so interesting web encyclopedia, Wikipedia, “is a generic term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices and the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. AT promotes greater independence for people with disabilities by enabling them to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to or changed methods of interacting with the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. According to disability advocates, technology is often created without regard to people with disabilities, creating unnecessary barriers to hundreds of millions of people.” I put that definition in here because the last part is just what my friend is railing about.

In one discussion Karen was talking about how she feels that AT design should be at the core of designing all products. I countered with the idea that one of the core philosophies embedded in the concept of unified communications is that a user should be able to have access to all communication functions that they use in business, on whatever device they are at the time using, wherever they are using it. What this means to me is that people who require assistive technology then become just one more group of people that we target our marketing efforts to, such as the mobile workforce, remote agent, or person who sits at a desk all day long, not as a special group.

So where am I going with all of this and what is my wish for the industry? Here is where the lens part of AT comes in. First of all, a few of the wishes in the twelve days of UC are not so much on what might be missing technologically from UC, but about awareness and promotion of what the industry is or should be doing to either further along development of certain areas or bring about customer interest (I have another twelve day blog with a similar theme coming up.) In the case of UC, we have already incorporated many AT functions into our products. For example, we are using speech recognition and text-to-speech in all manner of devices and applications. We use speech recognition in mobile phones for directory search, dialing, and web search. We use its sister, text-to-speech to read out driving directions, and web search results, or in any application where you want to automate the reading of large or variable pieces of information. UC has also benefitted from work done on accessibility for computer products, such as ergonomic improvements to keyboards, better telephone design, for the mobility or hearing impaired etc. Lots of things have already being done.

What is not being done is the industry promoting to the disability community what is available to them within unified communications, or just as important, bringing awareness to the rest of us lucky enough to not need AT (yet, as many of us will). A quick survey of a dozen web sites in the industry uncovered lots information on compliance, but little on promotion. For example, a search on Avaya brought up compliance information for Section 508 of the rehabilitation act, and information linked to it as to how they are complying, but little promotional efforts were visible. The same thing was true with Nortel who has information on Section 508 and Section 255, but little on promotion. When I asked vendors what they were doing in terms of adding AT to UC or promoting it, most didn’t know.

It seems that we have an opportunity here to satisfy the requirements of a growing group of users by highlighting and promoting efforts in making UC accessible. In 2008 I’d like to see more customer stories that do just that.