Dear List Members,
Pasting below a long but thought-provoking article from the Braille Monitor’s
November 2014 issue.
*** Start of article ***
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Tim Connell]
What is the Cost of a Free Product?
by Tim Connell
From the Editor: A longstanding debate has flourished among blind people about
the technology we use. One objection is its cost and, closely related to that,
its difference from what people who are not blind are purchasing and using. All
of us are looking for bargains, and it is never easy to ignore a sentence in
which the word "free" figures prominently. Also attractive is using the same
technology that sighted people use, because it is usually less expensive,
readily available, and easier to replace if it fails.
About a year ago we ran an article reflecting the opinion that screen readers
cost too much and that there were alternatives. In that piece we mistakenly
said that the price of one of the more popular screen readers was several
hundred dollars more than it actually was. In making apologies to the screen
reader developers, we asked if their company might like to make a case for the
for-profit companies that have traditionally brought screen-reading solutions
to the blind. They said they would think about it, but no article ever came.
Just last month we published an article featuring the presentation
made by NV Access at the 2014 NFB Convention. Again a good case was made for
blind people having a low-cost or free screen-reading solution, and the
National Federation of the Blind was recognized and thanked for our support of
the project. But a lack of thought-provoking material supporting the concept of
a for-profit company engaging to meet the special needs of the blind has meant
that the Braille Monitor has been uncomfortably silent about the tradeoffs
there might be if we embrace these free or low-cost solutions at the expense of
those we have traditionally relied on. The one exception is Resolution 2014-03,
“Regarding Principles That Should Govern the Purchase of Screen-Access
Technology for Vocational Rehabilitation Clients,” reprinted in the
August-September 2014 issue. What appears below is a piece that attempts to
look at all of the funding models for developing and purchasing screen readers
around the world. It forces the reader to examine more closely the proposition
that the lowest price is always better and that free unquestionably wins the
day. It also suggests that we closely examine the concept that, because
specialized technology is more expensive and necessarily different from what
the sighted use, it should be avoided, especially if the cost of that decision
is reflected in lower productivity.
Tim Connell is the founder and managing director of Quantum Technology and has
been an active contributor to the field of assistive technology for thirty
years. Quantum developed the first talking typewriter, called SpeakWriter, the
Braille-n-Print, the Mountbatten Brailler, Jot-a-Dot, and Pictures in a Flash
(PIAF). He is also a director of the Centre for Disability Studies at the
University of Sydney and lives with his wife and two adult children. Here is
what he has to say about special devices used by the blind, the various ways
their development and distribution can be funded, and the benefits and perhaps
unforeseen pitfalls that might be inherent in those now gaining in popularity:
Recently I moved back into the suburb in which I grew up. It has been
astounding to witness the changes that have occurred in the last fifty years. I
remember a shopping center that consisted of a large number of small family-run
businesses, but, as has happened in most Western countries, there is now just a
single large supermarket, and the small shops have disappeared. Supermarkets
have brought many improvements to the retail arena: lower costs, longer opening
hours, and online shopping, to name a few. The downside is a loss of customer
service and the personal relationships you had with your vendors. I mention
this because what really interests me is the process of change—how change can
involve many small incremental steps, none of which by themselves seem all that
important.
I think there is a direct analogy with the world of assistive
technology (AT). Until recently all AT has been developed and provided by small
specialty companies. With greater frequency we are starting to see large
corporations becoming involved and an increasing number of so-called free AT
options. Perhaps it is timely that we examine what that means for our field.
What are the implications for individuals with a print disability (low vision,
blindness, dyslexia) of being able to access free AT?
I was drawn to this topic by the recent announcement from GW Micro
that its screen reader, Window-Eyes, would now be available to download at no
cost if you owned a copy of MS Office. While this is technically not a free
product, it has created a great deal of discussion and debate, with many
calling it a game-changer and a new era for assistive technology. I don't
happen to think that is the case, and I will discuss why later. There are also
other ways that free options are also starting to appear.
· The App Model: The meteoric rise of the iPad has been
discussed at some length, and the number of free or very low-cost apps is
increasing daily. New Android and Windows platforms are adding hundreds of
thousands more.
· The Philanthropic Model: The screen reader NVDA is an
excellent example of this, in which philanthropic spending from large
corporations such as Mozilla and Microsoft has supported the development of a
competitor to commercial screen readers.
· The Health Insurance Model: In some European countries
access to vision aids is largely provided through health insurance companies,
using a levy paid by all taxpayers.
· The Universal Design Model: This is where products are
designed from the beginning with the intention of being accessible to all. The
screen reader VoiceOver on Apple products is an example of this.
· Various Models of Direct Government Funding of AT: Pretty
much everyone has welcomed the advent of these free options and believes they
are giving rise to more options and greater choice for individuals with a print
disability. What hasn't been discussed is the possibility that these free
options may ultimately have unintended consequences and that there may actually
be a high cost for a free product. That cost may involve the loss of specialty
providers and an increased dependence on large corporations—what I would call a
supermarket model for AT delivery.
Over the thirty years I have been involved in AT, we have travelled
an enormous distance from a time when access to information was limited or
non-existent, to a world where limitless amounts of information are available.
Thirty years ago a person who used Braille needed a large garage or warehouse
to store a modest library. Today all of us can access huge libraries just using
the phone in our pockets and a refreshable Braille display. It is easy to
forget just how far we have come in such a short period and to overlook the
incredible changes in opportunities and expectations that people with a print
disability now have, all thanks to the small specialty providers that make up
the AT industry.
I am confident that history will record this period of
technological development and the rise of AT as one of the key factors in the
emancipation of people with disabilities worldwide. So, if we are going to move
to the supermarket model for AT, we need to be really sure what it is we are
leaving behind. Let's start by looking at access to the personal computer (PC),
a foundational part of almost every blind person’s technical life. The PC
market has been dominated by Microsoft, both in the operating systems used and
by the suite of programs that turn our PCs into productivity tools.
Approximately 90 percent of desktop computers around the world use a Windows
operating system (compared to Apple's iOS operating system with around 7.5
percent. Microsoft has a range of productivity tools known as MS Office, which
has a market dominance of approximately 85 percent. MS Office accounts for 29
percent of Microsoft's overall revenue and approximately 60 percent of its
profit. These are staggering numbers and explain why so many corporations are
keen to knock Microsoft off its perch.
There have been many attempts to do just that by developing
alternative products to MS Office. For a little over twenty years we have had
access to a free alternative, now known as OpenOffice Apache. OpenOffice has
direct product alternatives, such as Writer for Word, Calc for Excel, and
Impress for PowerPoint. However, in twenty years a completely free alternative
to MS Office has been able to attract only a 3 percent market share. Other free
alternatives such as LibreOffice, NeoOffice, and KOffice have been even less
successful than OpenOffice, garnering a combined market share of 5 percent.
More recently GoogleDocs has started to pose more of a challenge,
and the whole move to cloud-based computing is throwing up lots of competition
for Microsoft. However, it is also throwing up many challenges for screen
readers and is a far more complex environment than desktop computing. We are
not assured at this stage that we will be able to maintain the same level of
accessibility in the cloud as we have at the desktop.
The bottom line is that until now Microsoft has been able to
achieve such market dominance while there has been a fully featured free
alternative. We (the 85 percent of us) have chosen an expensive tool like MS
Office over a free tool that is nearly as good. If you Google OpenOffice and
read the multitude of reviews and comparisons, you will find this phrase
repeated often: "nearly as good." However, you won't find a review that claims
OpenOffice is the “best.”
To me this highlights a key problem in our understanding of the
role of AT. Up to this point I believe we have always been guided by what is
best. We have seen the development of solutions that may not be affordable to
individuals, like the early refreshable Braille displays. However, they opened
the door to innovation pathways that have resulted in lower prices and vastly
improved products. The very first video magnifiers were commercialized by Bernd
Reinecker in Germany in the late 1960s. His first system cost twenty thousand
marks (approximately ten thousand euro), which was the equivalent of an above
average annual salary. That is not a tenable proposition for a large
multi-national company today.
Our current specialist solutions have all been created by small
teams of highly innovative technologists who have applied themselves to solving
access issues for a very small population. Low volumes have meant high costs,
and those costs have become the focus of our attention.
Very few people argue that the free products are better than the
commercial products; the argument is nearly always about the cost. So, if we
accept that we always want to maintain the best options as one of the choices
people have, shouldn't our focus now be on the core issue of funding? When we
make that our focus, it is pretty clear that we have failed to make funding the
paramount issue of accessibility. Far too many organizations and agencies have
embraced the attitude of scarcity, and, rather than take a rights-based
approach and demand more funding, they now promote a free and low-cost approach
as the best way to represent the rights of their members. However, those rights
are enshrined in law, and we need to base our claims for increased funding on
the clear economic benefits of having a more able and productive community.
Lack of funding of the best technology solutions is the true barrier to
equality of access.
At the beginning of this article I described various models of
delivering free products. I'd like to take a look at each of them in more
detail. While the benefits may be obvious, the potential pitfalls may not.
The App Model
Technology and apps have and will continue to have an enormous impact on the
way we access information. They are rightfully being called transformational
technology. Many apps are free or cost just under a dollar and are therefore
available to all. However, apps, by their very nature, have limited
functionality, and a suite of apps is needed to replicate the functionality of
many existing AT products (it is estimated you would need fourteen apps to get
close to the functionality of WYNN, for example). [WYNN is software developed
by Freedom Scientific to assist people who have learning disabilities that
affect reading.] Individual apps may be brilliant, but collectively they don't
offer anywhere near the same level of functionality, due to factors such as a
lack of uniform design standards (in menus, gestures, orientation, etc.) and a
lack of support and training.
One area that apps have made an enormous impact on is in augmentative and
alternative communication (AAC), particularly communication tools. An iPad with
various apps is providing an alternative for a fraction of the price of
traditional communication tablets. As a result we have seen the decimation of
the traditional AAC business model, with estimates that there are now fewer
than a third of the AAC companies that existed ten years ago.
For the wider print disability field small touchscreen computers
and apps may one day provide an equivalent level of access, but they are
currently not a solution that will provide true equality of access in education
or employment. Anyone claiming otherwise is doing a great disservice to the
people he or she is professing to serve. These may serve well as a great
personal device, but they are not computers.
A recent report on the effectiveness of federal government funding,
as featured in the Department of Education's evaluation of the MSSAID Program,
November 2013, described the increased use of iPads in classrooms as follows:
Mainstream technologies with applications that match specific needs are
replacing the former specialized, clunky equipment that was provided for the
individual student according to their disability. The subtle but critical shift
to the technologies enabling learning as opposed to addressing the "deficit" of
a disability is no longer highlighting the student as being different.
Are we to interpret this report and others like it to say that it
is more important for students with disabilities to look normal than to have
the best tools to address their specific disability? Is this progress? There
are many other examples that could be provided in which devices like iPads are
being promoted as a generic fix for inclusivity and accessibility.
The Philanthropic Model
The work that the developers of NVDA have done is exceptional. On a
small budget they have developed a really good product and have provided a free
screen reader to many thousands of people around the world who couldn't
previously afford one, especially in developing countries. Their technical
skills and dedication are to be applauded; however, I have a problem with the
funding model they have chosen. Philanthropic funding is at best a fragile
beast, and it often doesn't extend to covering services like training and
support, which can be the most important components of accessibility
(especially in education). The bigger issue of equity and why we accept such a
fundamental right as access to a computer to be at the whim of philanthropic
generosity should be of tremendous concern. Do we welcome it simply because the
recipients are people with a disability? Why is this particular group of people
not worthy of a business model that guarantees standards of support, service,
and viability? The developers of NVDA need investors, not handouts.
The Health Insurance Model
For people in markets that are largely unfunded (such as Australia,
USA, UK, and Canada), the idea that you can get the equipment you need through
your health insurer seems very attractive. In these countries the health
insurance companies call for tenders for commonly used items such as video
magnifiers and Braille displays and are able to negotiate incredibly low prices
through bulk national purchasing. On the face of it this seems like a win-win
situation—universal access to AT at the lowest possible prices. However, what
has happened under the insurance model is that the choice of options for
individuals is greatly restricted; in fact, it is only the products that the
insurers support that are viable. There are very limited opportunities for
innovative products to enter the market, since they are often more expensive
and not supported by the insurers. And one of the most damaging features is
that the role of assessment has been pretty well bypassed. The role of
specialists is marginal when they can recommend only those options that are
supported by the insurers.
In most unfunded markets the European insurance model seems
attractive. Yet it is achieving much poorer outcomes for individuals and is
putting a brake on innovation, affecting long-term prospects. The European
insurance model is very much a case of "be careful what you wish for, lest it
come true."
In Australia we are starting to see health insurance companies
provide rebates on classes of products rather than individual items, though at
this stage they are only small. This is a far better design, since it leaves
the choice of device up to the user, supports normal commercial
competitiveness, and ensures that assessments are based on individual needs and
a wide choice of products.
The Universal Design Model
Universal design began as a concept in architecture—that buildings
should be inherently accessible by all—but has evolved now to mean access to
all products, to learning, and to information. In 1963 Selwyn Goldsmith wrote a
book called Designing for the Disabled, one of the earliest treatises on
universal design. Goldsmith is remembered for the creation of the curb ramp—now
a standard feature of the built environment. Curb ramps, ramps to buildings,
ramps on buses that kneel for wheelchairs—all are good examples of universal
design that are part of our standard expectations for how the world should work.
Typically any discussion of universal design considers both the
specialist tool and the wider environment in which it has to work. So with the
wheelchair we looked at how to change the environment so that a wheelchair can
more easily access it. For the hearing aid we looked at how we could change the
environment by putting hearing loops in schools, buildings, and cinemas.
Universal design has been all about designing the world so that it includes the
specialist device.
However, the argument that is emerging within the print-disability
field is that we should get rid of the specialist tool altogether so that the
environment is accessible to all. At the heart of this argument is the
proposition that the differences of being blind, for example, are small enough
that they can be catered to in a one-size-fits-all product. This idea seems
reckless. The discussion of universal design has moved away from the myriad of
other access issues that still exist—things like accessible white goods [home
appliances], accessible transportation, accessible signage and public
information, or even accessible education and the design of curricula. Instead
we have various prophets going around deliberately promoting the end of
specialist AT products and providers and talking about liberating people from
the high cost of specialist tools.
The cost of screen readers has become a bigger issue than all the
other accessibility challenges facing every person with a print disability.
What happens if universal design ends up giving us less functionality or
features than the specialist products? To what extent can we sacrifice
efficiency in order to minimize our appearance of difference by using
technology different from that used by sighted peers?
It all comes down to whether we can trust the likes of Apple,
Microsoft, Google, and the new players that will arrive in the next decade.
Over the long term how important is the 1 percent of the population who are
visually impaired, or a subset of that being people who depend on Braille, or a
subset of that again, people who are deaf-blind or have multiple disabilities?
Should we start trying to assess what level of specialist support to those
groups will be lost? There is a clear-cut economic argument called majority
rules that will eventually win the day, and a large multinational corporation
is never going to provide the same level of nuanced accommodations that a
specialist provider will.
Proponents of the universal design model argue that they are not
promoting the end of specialist tools; they want a world where people can have
both. Whether that is possible remains to be seen, but I suspect we will
continue to see the incremental loss of small specialist providers, just as we
have seen in the AAC sphere. The recent fate of GW Micro offers clear evidence
of this. People too often conclude that the high price of specialist AT
products springs from extortionist pricing policies, instead of the real costs
of providing the best specialist solutions to a very small population.
Shrinking what is already a very small commercial market will simply make it
unviable for many more companies.
In the absence of funding, however, a free product like Apple's
VoiceOver is attractive, and there are many people extolling its virtues
without asking how free it is given how much you pay for the Mac versus an
equivalent PC. It is a very good accessibility solution straight out of the
box, but it is not without problems. VoiceOver is not a separate program but an
integral part of the operating system, which means that bugs and fixes occur
only when the operating system is upgraded. There was a significant bug in the
way VoiceOver handled Braille translation that took nearly three years to fix.
It took over a year for a bug that moved you backwards on a webpage when you
chose to go forward. Plenty of other examples provide a sharp point of
differentiation between VoiceOver and the products produced by the developers
of JAWS and NVDA, for example, who provide regular updates and fixes. Even the
most ardent supporters of VoiceOver admit that sometimes the little things seem
to get overlooked, or features that seem obvious never arrive. (For example,
see the article written on the AppleVis website by the editorial team in April
2014.) While Apple is riding the crest of an economic wave, these little things
may be just annoyances. It is yet to be seen how many of these little things
would exist if they were struggling financially and if they would again abandon
accessibility as they did in the 1990s.
VoiceOver may be a good product for the person who wants to use
email and browse the web. But it is not a solution for anyone who works with
complex Excel files, writes in various programming languages, manages networks,
or plays any number of other real-life employment roles. It would be
devastating if it was the only screen reader around.
Microsoft has chosen to go down a different path altogether, with
the arrangement mentioned previously to provide Window-Eyes to anyone who has
purchased MS Office. Many commentators are calling this a universal design
solution, but that is the case only if Microsoft is going to incorporate
Window-Eyes code into its own operating system, and at this stage there is no
evidence of that happening. A more cynical suggestion has been that the deal
came about as a means of complying with legislative and consumer pressure on
Microsoft to do more about accessibility. A possible outcome of this deal is
that philanthropic funding will be harder to secure because an equivalent free
product exists, putting a great deal of pressure on NVDA. So the first
consequence of Microsoft's move could be the demise of a product that many
argue is better than Window-Eyes. Once again we have a short-term gain, with
some people able to access a free screen reader, but at a longer-term cost of
having less diversity and product choices and less competition driving
innovation.
The Government Funding Model
Many models for government funding exist, some good and some bad.
The best ones are based on outcomes and not on upfront costs. The best ones
value the long-term social and economic benefits of enabling all people to
participate in employment and education.
In March of 2014 a program of support for people who are blind was
announced by the government of Colombia. The local blindness consumer group
made a convincing argument that many blind people in Colombia could not afford
accessibility tools needed for education and employment. They argued that, by
empowering them with the right tools, together with training and support, the
government could save money by helping people move off social welfare. The
Colombian government agreed and provided US$3 million for a package of support
that includes a copy of either JAWS or MAGic, training centers in fifteen
cities around Colombia, and hotline phone support for all users. In the first
few weeks of being implemented, over thirty thousand people in Colombia had
downloaded a copy of JAWS or MAGic. The bulk of the cost for this effort was in
training and support and not in the purchase of the software. The government
could have chosen a free solution but realized that the success of the program
depended on having a business model that focused on outcomes and which
guaranteed training and support. This initiative by the Colombian government
shows us another way for consumers to have a free product.
Summary
A growing number of people in the print-disability field are not happy with the
status quo and with the fact that specialist products are expensive and not
available to all. The prospect of cheap or free products has become the goal
that many individuals as well as some agencies are now supporting. When I
started to think about this subject, my first question was, "Who is going to
support an argument against free products?" "Not many people" is the answer. So
perhaps the days of specialist developers and vendors really are numbered. In a
world where many problems still exist, particularly in employment, some people
need to assign blame and prefer to view the specialist providers as the
problem. The cost of a commercial screen reader is viewed as the problem, and
getting something free would help solve that problem. However, I keep returning
to the supermarket analogy and have come to the conclusion that those small
steps of change that occur incrementally mean we may not know what has been
lost till it is too late. We may not really be aware of the change that is
currently underway in the AT market. The point that is being missed is that it
is not the cost of the product that should be our focus, but the ability of the
product to fully meet the needs of each individual. Does a keen fisherman get
all of his fishing gear at Kmart, or does he go to a fishing gear specialist?
Do elite athletes buy all their sporting gear from Target, or do they go to
specialist suppliers? Is price going to be the driver to make people
successful, or is it getting the best possible solutions that will determine
whether people can achieve their potential?
I would like to see a robust and informed debate on this issue,
focusing on achieving the best possible outcomes for people with a print
disability. At the heart of that debate are funding and finding business models
that support choice, training, and ongoing support, as well as nurturing
innovation. Agencies in particular should be at the vanguard of this debate,
ensuring the best long-term outcomes for their members.
Championing something that is "almost as good" is actually a major
step backwards; if it wasn't, we would all be using OpenOffice. Product cost is
not the issue that should define this debate; it is real life outcomes.
Generally our attitudes about technology are that we feel
comfortable with what we know. However, what we don't know is just around the
corner, and in ten years we may find we have completely new ways to interface
with technology, like holographic displays or other systems that rely more on
vision or cognitive ability. If it comes to a choice between large
multi-national corporations or small teams of dedicated and innovative
technologists to ensure true accessibility, I know whom I would rather have in
my corner.
*** End of article ***
Regards
Mr. Sameer Latey,
Mumbai, India
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