Never has working from home been more top of mind for millions of people all around the world. As we all come to grips with the unprecedented challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic present us, it’s clearer than ever that we need flexible work arrangements that allow us to adapt to fluid situations. This pandemic is unlikely to be one-and-done. It’s possible we’ll have a second wave this fall, and it’s not unthinkable that it recurs every year—becoming a new normal for millions of people all over the world.
Thankfully, we live in an era where technology makes many things possible. Modern technology combined with the Internet unlock abundant possibilities. This is true for everyone with access to a computer and Internet connection, but it particularly resonates for people with disabilities facing the current crisis. People with disabilities look to technology to open up doors that have long been slammed shut.
For instance, when I lost my eyesight while studying at university, I was fortunate to find myself in a time where the Internet allowed me to conduct my research online. Rather than partnering with a sighted friend to stumble through the maze of book sources found through the Dewey Decimal System, have those sources read to me, and then summarize my findings in the reports I submitted to professors, I could efficiently and independently research, curate, analyze, and report findings using electronic sources. Since then, technology has come a long way. The Internet is teeming with data, and it lays the infrastructure for the world’s information to instantly pass from one side of the globe to the other. Those with disabilities, like myself, now have many hardware and software tools that level the job market between us and the non-disabled.
We can purchase many regular commercial-off-the-shelf tech tools and have them up and running for us in an instant. Apple, for example, packages accessibility into every product they sell. MacBooks, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, Apple Watches, and their other products are shipped with assistive technology woven into their operating system. Disabled users can purchase one of these devices and walk home with a tool they can instantly use. Android devices are also equipped with accessibility features, and Microsoft has been including accessibility features in its products since the 1990s. These tools are game-changing for users of assistive technology. They unlock countless possibilities for personal fulfillment and professional development.
Nowadays, blind smartphone users can maintain a digital address book or calendar, schedule and manage appointments, and set reminders for certain tasks. They can send and receive email, surf the web, or communicate over video chat, text message, or even use their smartphone to make calls. Something as simple as an alarm clock, which used to require a special piece of hardware for the blind, can now be done through a smartphone app. This is also true for tools to read currency denominations.
Technology has also made work widely available for those with disabilities. The blind use a screen reader, which is a piece of software that reads the contents of the screen to the user. It provides both speech and braille output. For those with low vision, tools may magnify the screen, or display it using high contrast to make it easier to see. There are also tools for the hearing impaired, as well as those with reduced dexterity due to physical and/or motor impairments. .
As the technology and network bandwidth have matured over the last couple of decades, the processing architecture has become more sophisticated. Many tools have shifted from being located principally on a local computer, to having core application and data residing in a data center, where users access the interface to the tool using the Internet. This often takes place through a web browser, or thin client. Keeping the data and application in a data center on a centralized farm of servers makes maintaining, updating, and enhancing the application and database far easier. NO longer do engineers have to roll out updates to each device in the user community; they only need to update their servers and databases, and users will access the updated program when they next login to the tool via the WWW interface.
For instance, many large companies manage their customer records using a customer relationship management (CRM) program. Years ago, I wrote code to make one of these programs work for users of the screen reading tool, JAWS for Windows. The power of the JAWS for Windows tool lies in its laser focus on enterprise use, allowing end users to quickly find the right information, and its flexibility to be customized to integrate with a wide variety of applications. JAWS can be programmed to work with many disparate applications that are not designed with accessibility in mind.
This is helpful when dealing with an application such as the CRM program I addressed for several large banks and agencies. Fortunately, the vendors of these CRM systems now recognize that accessibility should not be an afterthought, so they are increasingly building accessibility into their software development lifecycle. With modern advances in technology and the information infrastructure provided by the Internet, many users can be just as productive working from home using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to securely access critical corporate resources while transacting business from the comfort of their home. Given the current market conditions and state of technology, people with disabilities are very well-positioned to capitalize on emerging remote work opportunities, given their familiarity with the technology and techniques needed to work from home.
