Accessibility: Inhuman to Humane
Arun Koormamtharayil
Hi,
I thought I'd share a conversation I had with my daughter, Gayatri, about Accessibility. It is so natural and simple an idea that even a child gets it. So, here it goes...
Accessibility: Inhuman to Humane
08/01/25 I Arun Koormamtharayil
Gayatri: Achha (father), what are you working on? She asked, after one of her Xth std pre board exams.
Arun: Gayatri, let me describe how current products are made. The various manufacturers consider only the young adult to not so old adults as their target market.
Roughly the 14 to 50 or so age group. This is the target market that all manufacturers of built environments, transport systems, products, services consider.
Gayatri: Ok. Go on...
Arun: Now, within that group, they consider only the able bodied, the fit, the ones with near perfect hearing, eyesight, speaking ability, strength and mobility.
But the reality is that each of these very same people in their target group were once very young and will eventually grow old. They had and will have different needs. They will, through their lifetime, have illnesses and hence temporary impairments in one or more of their abilities, whether it is strength or mobility and so on.
They could also have diseases or accidents that cause partial or complete loss of any of their abilities - vision, hearing, mobility, strength,... or cause vision impairments/degradation through bad postures or habits,..
Gayatri: They have not factored in time at all!
Arun: Precisely! So, part of their target market itself has temporary or permanent disability, you see.
Gayatri: Interesting!
Arun: Then, if we take the human population, perhaps about 8% of males and 0.5% of females are colour blind and there are about 25% who use spectacles, a significant number of older people, about 17% have cataract and can't see well, who may or may not have it removed, then there are colour and or contrast recognition impairments and a small %, perhaps a little over half a percent of people are permanently blind, either by birth or through disease or accidents.
Gayatri: They are not covered at all?
Arun: There is more. This is the case with all the different senses or abilities - hearing, speech, touch, mobility, strength and the people who are wheelchair bound.
Gayatri: So, how or what products do those people use?
Arun: There are simply no products for them. Or they are specially made for them or expensive or not easily available.
So, the needs of a significant part of the human population are not considered at all or given due weightage when new built environments, transport ecosystems, products or services are conceived. Can you imagine that?
Gayatri: Isn't that inhuman to do so? Not considering their needs at all???
Arun: Gayatri, that exactly is what Universal Design and Accessibility tries to do.
Create built environments, transport systems, digital content and devices, products or services that are used for work or for leisure - simply work well for all humans, irrespective of their degree of disability. Remember, some or a lot of these considerations will make the resultant product better for everyone!!!
Gayatri: And how can that be done?
Arun: Well, when you conceive things, you simply include additional considerations - what if the person has low vision, hearing, is not very mobile or feeble like your grandfather is...
And then, when you think up of buildings, content, products or services we can all come up with ideas for products that will work much better for everyone!
Gayatri: But won't it increase the cost?
Arun: Take the instance of a cooking pan - a vessel with a handle. Now, if the handle is stout or thick, a hole at the end allows you to hang it and it is not very heavy, then everyone can use it perhaps?
People used to say, quality will increase the cost. Not always. If you do the right things and do it very well, the cost of quality can be nearly built in. So too with accessible products - it is the quality of thinking and considerations at inception that can create great accessible products. It need not always imply an increase in cost and just like quality, it could also be built in.
Of course, it may increase the cost too in some cases, but remember the target market too has grown significantly larger. Implying the costs may come down as well!
Gayatri: Interesting Achha. I hope they do it soon!!!
And as she went back to study, I thought about the everyday products that PwD could use:
Conventional everyday products could be made into Universally Accessible Products > at the next level, there are Adaptive Products - sort of like Plug-in’s on the Universal Products > the next level products are the Assistive Technologies and Aids > and lastly, there are products made for Special Needs.
Making Universal Accessibility the norm is no doubt the first step.
The End
Arun Koormamtharayil
Amita Dhanda
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Abha Khetarpal
Regards
Dr. Abha Khetarpal
National Member, World Human Rights Protection Commission
Member Sexual Harassment Committee, Department of Disability Affairs, Government of India
Member Active Assisted Living, LITD 35, Bureau of Indian Standards
Member of GAATES (Global Alliance on Accessible Technologies and Environments (GAATES)
Non Institutional Expert, Equality and Diversity Committee, Enabling Unit, UCMS (University of Delhi) & GTB Hospital
National Award Winner & 100 Women Achiever Awardee
Henry Viscardi Achievement Awardee 2019
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