Domain 5: Digital Accessibility
“We live in a digital age of wild possibility. Fed a stream of images like The Jetsons, Her, Black Mirror, and NASA landings, I’m as guilty as the next person of associating the word “future” with intergalactic pioneers and shiny, techy gadgets. We are not wrong to think that an accessible future depends on technology, but it is so far from rocket science.”
– Hannah Silver, disability activist and Urban Designer, Portland State University[1]
Twelve percent of Canadians with a disability use an electronic device (smartphone, smartwatch, desktop computer, laptop or tablet) with specialized software and/or hardware adaptations.[2] Three of the eight measures that countries commit to under Article 9 of the UN CRPD pertain to enhancing access to electronic technology and digital information. Despite this commitment, over 60% of government websites worldwide are currently not accessible by persons with disabilities.[3] It is further estimated that 97% of all websites globally, a number that is now over a billion, fail to meet accessibility requirements.[4] The UN CRPD does not contain a specific Article on digital technology, other than those provisions outlined in Articles 9 and 20, and by implication and interpretation potentially elsewhere.
The computer industry has made significant progress in making hardware and software more accessible to people with disabilities. This includes the development of assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice recognition software, and magnifiers, as well as the adoption of accessibility standards such as those set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). As a recent article in the journal Nature points out, the pandemic also created a teachable moment for disability tech: The pandemic showed us that “Supermarkets, restaurants and pharmacies (even outside cities) can deliver; Remote working, medicine and education are possible for many; and social lives can be rewarding without requiring us to leave home.”[5]
When one speaks of ‘digital access’, there is also an interesting overlap between the accessibility interests of people with disabilities, and the accessibility interests of those who advocate for access to data and knowledge-sharing as a human right, imperative to creating a democratized digital commons. This includes such organizations as SPARC, the Centre for Digital Resilience, the Wikimedia Foundation, and – in Canada – Open North.
SPOTLIGHT: Calgary Digital Equity Strategy
The City of Calgary began work in spring 2021 and has now finalized a Digital Equity Strategy that identifies the guiding principles and values and builds a road map for how Calgary will reduce the digital divide. The “goal is to make lives better every day by reducing barriers that form the digital divide and helping Calgarians to access devices, internet connections, and the skills required for them to connect online the way they want to.”[6]
To further explore Domain 5: Digital Accessibility, click to explore the sub-domains below:
Accessibility Software and Applications
Digital Accessibility Standards
- Silver, in Stafford, Vanik and Bates, Disability Justice and Urban Planning, 2022. ↵
- Choi, Accessibility Findings from the Canadian Survey on Disability, 2021. ↵
- UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Disability and Development Report, 2019. ↵
- WebAIM. (2023). The WebAIM Million [website]. https://webaim.org/projects/million/ ↵
- Shew, Let COVID-19 expand awareness of disability tech, 2020. ↵
- City of Calgary. Digital Equity [website]. https://www.calgary.ca/major-projects/smart-city/digital-equity.html ↵
