Thank you Jonathan That was very interesting. I think we need to do this, only if it helps blind people get employment.
> On 10 Jul 2014, at 05:51 pm, Jonathan Mosen <jmo...@mosen.org> wrote: > > Hi everyone. I'm a supporter of this resolution. To offer an alternative > perspective on the discussion, I'd like to paste here the text of an entry I > posted on my blog at > http://mosen.org/index.php/nfbs-ios-app-resolution-some-perspective-and-context/ > Being a member of a minority is exhausting at times. Ignorance, > discrimination (both inadvertent and deliberate), and barriers preventing us > from realising our full potential are problems we encounter regularly. These > issues aren’t unique to blind people, or even to disabled people. I’m mindful > as I write this of the recent 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act in the > United States. It’s a significant piece of legislation. It required bravery > on the part of the legislators who passed it. Its principles met with > considerable resistance, some of it violent. > This post is a long one, because I believe the issues of self-advocacy, > collective advocacy, what is worth fighting for and what is not, are all > important to our sense of self-perception and our expectations of what > constitutes our rightful place in society. > I’d like to illustrate both the challenges and potential of advocacy by > recalling a few issues on which I’ve worked over the years, remind you of the > advocacy of other minorities, then take a look at the National Federation of > the Blind’s resolution on the accessibility of iOS apps in that context. > Maybe before you took time out to read this post, you spent some time today > reading a book. Perhaps it came from Bookshare, or a special format library. > We now have access to eBooks, and it’s worth noting that access to the Kindle > app was achieved after considerable collective advocacy efforts. > Nevertheless, special format libraries and repositories continue to play an > important part in blind people exercising our right to read. It wasn’t always > this easy for special format organisations to get their material to you. > In 1994, as the Manager of Government Relations for the organisation then > known as the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind, I oversaw a campaign > of advocacy which took advantage of New Zealand’s Copyright Act being > rewritten. We believed that if an author published a book, it was being > published for all the people to access. The status quo at that time was that > if the special format library in New Zealand, and for that matter most other > countries, wanted to make a book available in Braille or on talking book, > they had to write a letter to the copyright holder asking for their > permission. Sometimes, those letters would sit on someone’s desk for months > and months. Eventually, the library would get a reply. Most of the time the > reply said “yes”, sometimes the request was declined, meaning blind people > were deprived of access to that book. > It seemed wrong to me that the process of making the book available in a > special format, which is time-consuming in itself, was delayed by the need to > seek permission. It was absolutely abhorrent to me that publishers felt they > had the right to say “no”. > We began an advocacy campaign asking for a clause to be added to the > Copyright Act giving blanket permission for recognised organisations for > people with print disabilities to make books available in special formats, > without having to seek the permission of the copyright holder first. > The response of the publishers was ferocious. They blasted me, and the > campaign, for a culture of entitlement. Worse, they called me a thief. One > day, I got a call from the representative of publishers who said, “so tell > me, do you steal from everyone, or just from publishers”? > There’s no doubt we’d got the publishers angry. But we calmly made our case > to the people who mattered, legislators. We pointed out that the publishers > weren’t being required to pay for their material to be made available in > special formats, that access to the printed word was just as important as > access to the built environment. The legislators agreed, and the law was > passed. It was ground-breaking, and in subsequent years I was approached by a > number of organisations in multiple countries, including the United States, > about how we concluded that advocacy effort successfully and how they might > go about doing something similar. > Ultimately, that concept has now been enshrined in an international treaty. > Something considered by some to be radical, over-reaching, exhibiting > entitlement just 20 years ago is now considered sound public policy, even by > the publishers. > Not long after that campaign was concluded successfully, I was being asked to > front up on a range of current affairs shows over my campaign to repeal the > law which arguably prohibited any blind person from serving on any jury. I > debated the issue on radio with our Minister of Justice, who was staunchly > opposed to any change in the law. In the most exciting of these appearances, > I was debating one of New Zealand’s top criminal lawyers, who was both > patronising and adamant on the subject. Sight, he said, was essential to > serve on any jury. I put my case politely but forcefully. > Afterwards, the talk shows were full of it. There were a good number of > people who talked about political correctness gone mad, asking why the > Foundation was paying big money for this clown to alienate people, saying > they’d never donate to the Foundation again. No matter how psychologically > prepared you are for the onslaught, it’s not easy being in the centre of that > kind of firestorm. > However, legislators were watching. Enough had been persuaded by the logic of > my argument that the law was changed. Now it’s totally a non-issue. > I could fill screens and screens with examples like this – examples of taking > advocacy stances that were right, but unpopular. > All the vitriol I went through is totally insignificant compared with what > racial minorities, such as blacks in the US, went through to secure their > right to equality. There was no shortage of people who said, “if we don’t > want to serve blacks, that’s our right. If we don’t want blacks at our > school, that’s our right”. If brave, great civil rights leaders had listened > to those who were worried about how many white people civil rights campaigns > were offending, what a much less equal world we’d have. Sometimes, you have > to take a stand knowing it will offend. That’s not to say you deliberately > seek to offend. One is better respected, and furthers one’s cause, when one > is resolute but courteous. > In the context of the resolution passed by NFB over the weekend asking that > Apple require all iOS apps to be accessible, it really saddens me to see the > number of young people on social networks, enjoying entitlements very hard > fought for, slamming what they perceive to be the culture of entitlement > pervasive in the resolution. Ironic, and sad. > People seem to forget that in 2008, we only had access to iTunes, at least in > Windows, thanks to the diligence of one man, Brian Hartgen. I seem to recall > a lot of people complaining extremely vociferously about the cost he was > charging to get some recompense for the hours and hours it took to make that > dog’s breakfast of an app useable. > Then, as Apple embarked on iTunes U, and educational institutions began > adopting it, iTunes became subject to federal law. The NFB of Massachusetts > sued Apple, and also put pressure on universities not to use iTunes U until > iTunes was fully accessible. NFB won that suit. Now, blind people with a > range of screen readers benefit daily from that advocacy, which some people > criticised at the time. > Can we express gratitude and request change at the same time? Yes of course > we can. NFB gave Apple an award in 2010 for the remarkable, life-changing > introduction of VoiceOver to iOS. But we are customers. The money we pay for > an iPhone or iPad is no less of value than the money a sighted person pays. > We’re perfectly entitled to strive for access to as many apps as we can get. > Since the resolution was published ahead of the debate, a move for which I > thank NFB as the debate was interesting, people have asked why Apple is being > singled out. I think the reasons for that are twofold. > First, more blind smartphone users are using iOS than any other platform, by > virtue of how well Apple has done. Apple can and should be proud of that. > Second and most significantly, no other app repository imposes as many > criteria on app developers. Apps are rejected from the App Store for a bunch > of reasons. Apple can decide the app adds no particular value. They can > reject it for security reasons. They can decide the app is in bad taste, or > not family-friendly enough. Those of us who’ve been around a while may > remember all the hassles Google had getting the Google Voice app into the App > Store. > So then the question is, why shouldn’t accessibility be of greater concern? > Some have said that the resolution’s scope is totally unrealistic. They say > that calling for all apps to be accessible is just a nonsense. It can’t be > done, and it would be hard to police even if it could. > Let me take the first part first. It can’t be done? Yes, I agree with that. > It can’t. There are some apps so visual in nature and purpose that you’re > never going to make them accessible. If that’s the case, why do I support the > resolution? I support it, because it’s important to understand how advocacy > works. You go into a negotiation with your very best case scenario on > display. In an ideal world, we’d like all apps to be accessible. I have no > inside information, but I have concluded many successful advocacy campaigns, > and I have no doubt that NFB will already be clear about where they’d be > prepared to give ground. If Apple comes to the table, their starting position > is likely to be that whether a third-party app is accessible or not is a > matter for the developer in question, not Apple. Apple may well also have a > compromise position of some kind in mind. It’s an absolutely standard > negotiating position. > Second, how practical is the resolution, given that there are approximately > 1.5 million apps in the Store? There are plenty of automated testing tools in > use in IT companies. They can certainly test for textual labels on buttons, > although I agree it would have to be a clever testing tool to try and > ascertain whether the text was helpful. Tricky, but Apple has some of the > best software engineers in the world. > I can remember some years ago when web accessibility campaigns were in their > infancy. Many people were complaining then about how unnecessary and > politically correct web accessibility was because they just knew blind people > would never go to their website anyway. Then, DreamWeaver, a popular web > authoring tool, added warnings when developers tried to save a page that > contained links or graphics without ALT text. A warning would pop up telling > the developer that it looked like they were about to create an inaccessible > page, and did they really want to do that. Adding a similar warning to > Apple’s developer tools could make a huge difference. > It’s true that automated testing tools and warnings when developers create an > app are not a panacea. Perhaps some additional blind people might be employed > to further Apple’s efforts here. And if a few more of the capable, tech-savvy > blind people I know who are struggling to find work could get those jobs, I’m > all for that. > Some people have said how sad it is that NFB is showing such ingratitude, > that they’re alienating developers, the very people we need to have on-side. > As you may know, I set up a company earlier this year, Appcessible, where a > bunch of blind people help app developers with accessibility. It’s rewarding > work, and I find it satisfying because if I see a problem, I always try to > find a constructive way of being part of the solution. But no matter how hard > we at Appcessible try, how hard you try as an individual who contacts a > developer, it’s a humungous task. You’ll have successes, and you’ll have > set-backs, but there’s a wider principle to be defended here. > The status quo is that app developers can say, “if we don’t wish to > accommodate blind people, that’s our right”. Sound familiar? It should do. > It’s a similar argument to that used against blacks in 1964. > Deaf people have been criticised for their efforts to have every single movie > captioned on Netflix. Wheelchair users were criticised for getting > legislation passed requiring all public buildings to be physically > accessible. Building owners objected, saying no disabled people come here > anyway so why should I bother? The irony is, disabled people didn’t go there > because they couldn’t. > Many app developers either don’t know blind people are using VoiceOver, think > we only use special apps, or think that we don’t want to use their particular > app. We’re a low-incidence population, so misconceptions are common. And > that’s yet another reason why this resolution has been a great move. I’ve > read a number of tech publications this morning, where a story about the > resolution is running. I figured it would get out there eventually, which is > why those who thought the resolution made no difference were naive and didn’t > understand the media clout of an organisation like NFB. > Of course there are those reacting badly. As I’ve sought to illustrate, > nothing worth winning in this world was ever won without objection, so I’m > relaxed about that. But you know what’s good? People are talking about app > accessibility in the mainstream. Some of the commenters are educating the > ignorant about how powerful VoiceOver is, what blind people are doing with > iPhones and how relatively easy it is to make an app accessible. Sure, > there’ll be people who will never be persuaded, but today, more people are a > little more informed about accessibility than yesterday. > Some have objected strongly to a quote in the Reuters piece on NFB’s > resolution in which an affiliate board member mentioned the potential of a > law suit on this issue. I listened to the debate carefully on Saturday, and > the question of a law suit didn’t come up. I also know from experience that > once a story gets into the wild, news agencies will contact people they have > on file, who may not necessarily be an authorised spokesperson for the > organisation. That’s just the nature of the media. Once the story gets out > there, you can’t control who they talk to. > I realise I’ve written a bit of a novel here, but I really want to try the > best I can to illustrate to younger people in particular why many of the > accommodations they enjoy today such as the course they’re studying, the job > they’re doing, the vocational choices they have, were achieved over the > opposition of some often powerful forces. We need to be far less worried > about what others think, and more concerned with a considered position on > what we believe the place of blind people in society to be. Do we have > sufficient self-worth that we’re willing to do what it takes to achieve > equality, even when it necessitates ruffling a few feathers, or are we > content to languish in our mediocrity and accept being rebuffed. > In this case, I think NFB made the right call. Maybe Apple will come to the > table, maybe it won’t. But already, more people are aware of accessibility > than they were before this resolution. If Apple does engage, the outcome > won’t be that every single app will be accessible, but with good will on both > sides, progress will be made. Then, in 20 years’ time, people will be trying > to remember why it was ever contentious. > > -- > The following information is important for all members of the viphone list. > All new members to the this list are moderated by default. If you have any > questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a > member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators > directly rather than posting on the list itself. 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