good article.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sameer" <sameer.la...@gmail.com>
To: "Access India" <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 1:02 AM
Subject: [AI] What is the Cost of a Free Product? (Braille Monitor
November2014)
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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