Ben Lovejoy
Apple takes great pride in its Accessibility features, promotes them
heavily, and has won awards for them. For someone living with a disability,
the right technology can literally be life-changing.
Apple's technology helps many people live a more independent life.
There is, though, still room for improvement. To better understand the
differences Apple technology makes, and the gaps that still exist, I
interviewed Colin Hughes, a 55-year-old Brit who has severe muscular
dystrophy - a muscle-wasting disease which leaves him effectively
quadriplegic, unable to use either arms or legs .
Hughes said that while smart home tech is about convenience for most people,
for him it's the difference between being able to do things for himself and
not.
" I'm fortunate to live in this digital voice driven era. It's opened up so
many opportunities for me that I would not otherwise have had. Every day I
almost have to pinch myself that I'm actually able, for the first time in my
life, to turn my own lights on, thermostat up, kettle on, blinds closed, and
so on.
Another feature that is really helping with my independence is enabling my
flat door to be opened and closed with voice commands. Initially it was
enabled for Alexa, but thanks to IFTTT I have found a workaround to control
the door with Siri as well. This has been great as it means I can get in and
out of my flat independently and spontaneously.
For me, it's not about an added bit of convenience. It is about
independence, pure and simple".
It's the same with the 'Hey Siri' feature in AirPods.
" One of the most successful Apple features for me (and ironically Apple do
not see it as an accessibility feature at all) is in built Siri. This has
had a huge impact on my life over the past year.
Previously, with almost every brand of Bluetooth earbud you had to be able
to raise your hand and touch the earbud to trigger the voice assistant, but
now with hands-free Siri, I'm able to do so many things with just a voice
command: place a call, play a music playlist, control my Philips lighting
when at home, check the time. All of this has proved extremely useful when I
am out and about in my wheelchair. It gives me peace of mind as well,
because I can call someone for help if I run into difficulties while away
from home on my own [.]
Another closely related feature that has been transformational is another
one Apple does not class as an accessibility feature but similarly has had a
huge impact on my life and that is Announce Messages with Siri. I can go out
for a walk in my wheelchair on my own with AirPods in my ears, on a sunny
day and I can think of my mum, or a close friend, and spontaneously text
them and hear their reply. I have never been able to do this before - and
you can't put a price on that level of independence.
However, while Hughes gets enormous benefits from HomeKit and Siri - two
mainstream Apple features - he ironically finds that some of the company's
Accessibility features are less effective. Lack of support for UK English in
Voice Control, for example, means that he has to boot his MacBook Pro into
Windows when he wants to dictate. British English is in iOS, and works, but
it's taken a very long time - and he isn't yet able to try the Mac.
" I'm an Apple user and fan. I am disappointed I have to turn to Dragon on
Windows to dictate emails and messages because Voice Control dictation isn't
good enough.
I write and campaign with my MacBook Pro with speech recognition technology.
It pains me that I simply cannot use Apple's Voice Control in its present
form, and have to occupy a twilight world running Parallels and Windows 10
on my MacBook Pro and using Dragon Professional 15 for voice dictation. I'm
so frustrated with this situation, I would like to make Voice Control my
number one choice for voice dictation but it does not support UK English
(although this is in the pipeline though I am yet to try it). In its present
form Voice Control is unusable for me". He says details matter.
" When it comes to accessibility, the little details can literally make or
break your day, your life even. Across the Apple ecosystem, there are still
yawning gaps in provision of critical accessibility features for severely
physically disabled people who can't touch screens, keyboards or trackpads".
For example, Accessibility offers an auto-answer capability for phone calls,
ideal for people who cannot touch a screen to answer a call. But you can't
ask Siri to switch on this functionality: a feature most useful for people
who can't touch a screen requires you to . touch a screen to enable it.
Sure, a disabled person can ask someone to do it for them, but accessibility
is all about enabling independence.
If you don't want to have auto-answer enabled, because it may not always be
convenient to take a call, there is no Siri or Voice Control command to
answer a call. Nor is there one to hang-up a call".
I have lost count of the number of times I call someone and end up in their
voicemail, and there is nothing I can do to end the call because I cannot
press the red button on the screen. The sense of powerlessness is palpable.
Very frustrating".
Hughes says the Apple Watch cellular model could almost be tailor-made for
people in his position, as it provides the security and independence of
being able to make and receive phone calls without needing a phone that they
can't access - but there's no auto-answer feature for the Watch".
He adds that bugs which might be slightly annoying for able-bodied people
can be show-stoppers for disabled people".
I can't dictate into the Google search text box with Voice Control dictation
without text getting mangled, for example randomly having no spaces between
words. The same in text boxes on sites like WordPress and many others. This
is a known bug that Apple acknowledges, but the company has not fixed it. It
is a fairly serious state of affairs when disabled users are unable to use
Apple software to search for knowledge on Google, which is essential for
everyone these days".
Siri dictation doesn't have this issue, but you can't mix-and-match them: if
Voice Control is active, it is used for dictation as well as control.
Hughes had one suggestion that he thinks might raise the profile of these
sorts of issues rather dramatically.
" If Tim Cook took up the challenge of spending a day in an electric
wheelchair, with his hands remaining on the armrests, and tried to use
Apple's technology to run his personal and professional day, he would
clearly see the huge gaps that need filling".
But he also thinks there's a better approach - in Apple learning from one of
its own claims.
" Sarah Herrlinger, Apple's head of accessibility, has said in the past:
"When you build for the margins, you actually make a better product for the
masses".
She is right. Make things easier for people like me to use and you make
things easier and more convenient for everyone. That is a strong selling
point these days.
Rather than building accessibility ghettos or silos, Apple should push the
philosophy of inclusive design much more strongly than it does the moment".
Why have both Siri and Voice Control, asks Hughes? Why not simply make Siri
more powerful by including all the Voice Control features? In that way,
Apple would have one voice technology to manage, and because Siri is a
mainstream technology, it might get more attention and priority than a
feature used by a small minority of Apple customers.
Hughes had to give up his job as a BBC news producer because of the
progression of his disability. He now devotes much of his time to
campaigning on greater access to technology for disabled people.
He had a lot more to say than I can include here, and I'm happy to say that
Apple is now following up with him on these and other issues.
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