The core purpose of technology is to improve people’s lives.
Could be through money, time saved, quality of life—anything.
A technology's usefulness is directly proportionate to how widely available it is—how many people can understand it and interact with it.
Questions to consider:
Is it...
These aren’t small questions. One billion people worldwide—15% of the world population—have some form of disability (per worldbank.org).
To better serve this 15% of the population, technologies need to be accessible to maximize their usefulness. Even better, technologies can make activities and solutions accessible where accessibility would otherwise be impossible.
That said, there are regulations in some locales for accessibility in software applications—we support that. But because we want to empower people with IT, we've gone further. We believe the core purpose of technology is to improve people's lives, and we want to maximize that by maximizing how many people it can enable. This article explores what accessible technology is, the regulations in the USA and Europe, and common ITSM features in software for those with disabilities.
Have you ever tried to use technology and it was unintuitive, felt broken, or was just hard to navigate? That can be true for anyone, let alone people with disabilities. And disabilities fall across a spectrum, but we all have strengths and gaps.
Sometimes technology can have unnecessary barriers that make it difficult (or impossible) to use, and that is especially so for people with disabilities —much like physical barriers of road curbs can prevent someone with limited mobility (like a person with polio, someone with knee problems from sports, or a person in a wheelchair) from accessing the sidewalk.
Accessible and assistive technology help with that. The technology is centered around the use of systems and tools for people with disabilities so they can access information (e.g., a website) just as someone without a disability would. Accessibility in IT Service Management (ITSM) is the practice of creating and implementing IT services that are designed and operated to be accessible to all users, regardless of if they have a disability or not. It’s up to IT teams to consider how to make sure their IT services can be used effectively by individuals with diverse abilities.
Not all accessibility needs that we should address are ITSM specific. There are some commonalities that can be addressed across many websites and applications.
While there are no regulation standards for technology that every website and online technology system must follow in the United States, there are some mandates in Europe.
USA Standards
In the US, there are suggestions from the US Department of Justice for web accessibility to fit with their interpretation of the nondiscrimination and effective communication provisions. The guidance and technical standards they use are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Section 508 Standards—what the federal government uses for its websites. That said, Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by “public accommodations” (businesses open to the public). So, to remain in compliance with the ADA, businesses open to the public must provide full and equal enjoyment to people with disabilities (websites and technology included).
TIP: ALT text is relevant for the accessibility it provides in allowing screen readers to understand the context of images on a page, but it is also used by search engines to understand the content—helping improve the SEO of a page. Keyword-rich ALT text can help images appear in Google Image Search –driving more traffic to a webpage.
European Standards: EN 301 549
All digital technology (e.g., websites, software, mobile apps, etc.) for businesses selling digital products or public organizations in Europe must conform with the specific accessibility standards listed under EN 301 549. The foundation was established in 2018 and is built on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). All 28 European Union (EU) member states, 3 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries (Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland), and 2 EU candidate countries (Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) have adopted the mandate. Public companies that fail to comply with EN 301 549 face the potential of legal penalties and fines. As for private-sector companies, they can potentially face limited procurement opportunities.
The web accessibility standards (which are listed below), referred to by the acronym POUR, are based on WCAG:
Digital accessibility is not just a technical requirement anymore. It's fundamental. Any business that wants to build a fair, inclusive, and innovative digital presence—especially considering most things are transitioning to the digital landscape—needs to update their platform and tools. If disabled people can’t properly use your solutions, you’re making their lives more difficult, but more importantly, losing customers. Use the ADA, WACG, and all of the other tools available to help make the future of IT solutions more accessible!