1 INTRODUCTION

This report has been prepared as part of a project funded by the 'AccessAbility Grants Program'. AccessAbility is a grants program administered by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, initiated in 1997, pursuant to the Investing for Growth statement and aimed at making online services more accessible for people with disabilities.

The work has predominantly been carried out by Tim Noonan on behalf of Blind Citizens Australia – Australia’s national organization of people who are blind and vision impaired

The most recent version of this report can be found on the Blind Citizens Australia website at http://www.bca.org.au/ecrep.htm

Statistics from the ABS and a variety of other sources are demonstrating the momentum with which electronic commerce is taking hold in our society. More people are now using the Internet (at home, work and elsewhere) than ever before, more people are buying goods over the Internet, the banks are having increasing success with electronic banking (particularly Internet banking) and the Australian Government has the stated objective of implementing a world class model for delivery of all appropriate government services online by 2001, as well as an intention to eliminate the majority of paper-based requirements for the majority of financial transactions.

Keith Hazelton, IT Architect at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the following about E-Commerce:

“It is now possible to conduct virtually any traditional business function electronically, from marketing to sales to delivery to post-sales support to accounting, customer service and business-to-business links.”

Unfortunately, many of these exciting possibilities promised by E-Commerce may be denied to a significant number of Australians due to the lack of planning for and appropriate consideration of the particular needs of people with disabilities. Although the Government states that it wants the Information Economy to be accessible to all, until very recently, there is little evidence that it has yet put in place many mechanisms at all to actually achieve this goal.

One of the primary purposes of this report is to clearly articulate the issues, the barriers, and the potential opportunities presented by this new era of technology and social change.

As will be strongly emphasised in the subsequent sections of this document, this problem of E-Commerce inaccessibility is not a small one – in fact, if not adequately addressed, it may have one of the most significant negative social impacts on people with disabilities than have any other social changes in the last 30 years.

1.1 Some Key Accessible E-Commerce Developments and Papers

This project, as well as the recently announced Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s inquiry into the impacts of E-Commerce and new technologies on people who are older or who have a disability (which is discussed further in section 8.3 below) are two positive Australian endeavours working to minimise these access restrictions.

Earlier this year, the area of accessible E-Commerce was examined from a social and US legislative perspective in an excellent paper by Cynthia Waddell titled ‘The Growing Digital Divide in Access for People with Disabilities: Overcoming Barriers to Participation' which is online at http://www.aasa.dshs.wa.gov/access/waddell.htm

In that paper Cynthia Waddell makes the following two statements, which fully apply to the Australian situation:

“Unless the civil rights of America’s 54 Million people with disabilities are addressed during this period of rapid technological development, the community will be locked out from participation on the basis of disability and the technological world will not be enriched by their diverse contributions. … Because the benefits for overcoming these barriers extend beyond the community of people with disabilities, there are practical and significant business reasons for addressing this issue. Rather than creating a growing digital divide, emerging technology can enable full participation in the digital economy for everyone, regardless of age, disability or the limitations of the technology available.”

“Whether the digital barrier is the inaccessible design of Internet/intranet websites, Internet service provider “portals”, incompatible browsers, or inaccessible web‑based platforms for online business, the trend is growing and must be addressed at the infancy of the digital economy. Already, exciting electronic and information technology features are emerging in the areas of information appliances, real-time conference participation, audiostreaming telephone voice browsers, search engines, news groups, chat rooms and 3D imaging. Unless functionality solutions for accessibility are addressed today, the state of the digital divide tomorrow may be impossible to overcome.”

The recently released Issues paper prepared by David Mason of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission titled ‘Issues Paper: Accessibility of electronic commerce and other new service delivery technologies for older Australians and people with a disability’ online at www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/current_inquiries/ecom/ecommerce_issues_paper.htm is another excellent reference on the state of Accessibility of E-Commerce in Australia. That report strongly complements the content of this paper. Information about The HREOC E-Commerce Reference that issues paper was prepared for can be found at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/current_inquiries/ecom/ecom.html

A variety of other initiatives are described throughout this report, which are all working to increase accessibility of information, services and technologies.

1.2 Project Background

During 1999, with funding from the Commonwealth Government’s ‘AccessAbility Grants Program’, Blind Citizens Australia has been investigating the impacts of Electronic Commerce on people with disabilities in Australia, and in particular people who are blind or vision impaired. This work has lead to this issues paper.

AccessAbility is a grants program administered by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, initiated in 1997, pursuant to the Investing for Growth statement and aimed at making online services more accessible for people with disabilities. In 1998, $1.5 million was provided for projects covering a range of disability groups. A second and final round of funding for this Grants program was held in 1999, and the outcomes are expected to be announced during November 1999.

This Accessible E-Commerce project has the following aims:

§ To investigate the positive and negative impacts of E-Commerce on people with disabilities;

§ To produce two discussion papers which explain the field and provide information about the current state-of-play in Australia and abroad;

§ To conduct one or more ‘Accessible E-Commerce’ seminars for stake-holders including people with disabilities, people working in the disability field, Government and those working in the E-Commerce industry; and

§ To develop recommendations for further research required in the field, in order to maximise the accessibility of future and developing online Australian E-Commerce services and products.

During the progress of the research, it has become evident that the most vital requirements for positive change will involve the activities listed below. Funding is being sought to further pursue these important areas of work during the year 2000.

§ Educate and raise awareness within the E-Commerce industry of - A. the need for accessible design and B. practical and achievable approaches which can lead to accessible E-Commerce products and services. In particular, online and self service banking, internet-based grocery shopping, and accessibility of Government services were identified as priority areas;

§ Inform Government about the barriers being presented by E-Commerce, and influence future policy and priorities to maximise the accessibility of Government and non-Government E-Commerce facilities;

§ Educate and inform people with disabilities, as well as people working in the disability industry about the possible barriers being created by E-Commerce developments, so that both these groups can bring pressure to bear on developers and policy-makers.

§ Become involved in national and international E-Commerce-related standards efforts to both educate, and to influence E-Commerce efforts;

§ Prepare a list of recommendations for Government and Industry which will lead to practices and activities that will maximise the accessibility of current and future E-Commerce services and facilities.

Publication by this ‘Accessible E-Commerce’ project of discussion papers (such as this one) is a strong first step towards achieving some of these goals. This project is also providing substantial input to HREOC’s recently announced inquiry into E-Commerce accessibility for people who are older and who have a disability.

Blind Citizens Australia is actively seeking partnerships and strategic alliances to further these goals. If you are interested in working with Blind Citizens Australia to improve the accessibility of E-Commerce facilities, please contact the author at tnoonan@softspeak.com.au

1.3 What is the Problem?

New technology has often been described as a double-edged sword – on one edge, having the potential to give incredible independence and participation on all levels – but on the other also having the potential to further deny access, close doors, and severely isolate people with disabilities from full participation in education, employment, recreation and social interaction.

But the problem isn't really with the technology per se; for it is just a malleable tool which can be used to create the myriad equipment and services that are desired.

1.4 What is Electronic Commerce?

Definitions of E-Commerce are many and varied and no one definition really gives an adequate perspective on the area.

Roger Clarke (a leading Australian Authority on E-Commerce) defines E-Commerce as:

“The conduct of commerce in goods and services, with the assistance of telecommunications and telecommunications-based tools.”

Mary-Anne Goldsworthy (an Executive Officer of the Centre for Electronic Commerce, Monash University) says the following about the subject:

“Electronic Commerce is fast becoming the catch-all phrase for electronic means of communicating information and business transactions. The fastest growing area of electronic commerce in Australia and the rest of the world is the use of the Internet and online services for exchanging knowledge, for advertising and marketing, for selling and buying, for banking, and for the emergence of entirely new ways of doing business and communicating with individuals and organizations.

Electronic commerce is levelling the playing field for small companies to trade as if they were much larger corporations in a global marketplace, and for regional businesses and communities to participate in cultural, social and commercial networks in a seamless and borderless way.”

About E-Commerce, Keith Hazelton, IT Architect at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says:

“E-Commerce (or electronic commerce) is much more than buying and selling over the Internet. Some authors prefer the term "e-business" because it calls to mind more of the ways that information technology (IT) can serve an institution's mission.”

He goes on to say

However, as this report explains, many of these new ways of doing things may not be accessible to many people with disabilities.

Most of the Government's strategies focus on the 'Information Economy' rather than just on E-Commerce. The Information Economy can be interpreted quite broadly, and incorporates online access to information and services, online interaction for commercial or social/cultural purposes. The Information Economy considers participation in society as well as the economy.

For practical purposes in this research, we are concerned with all aspects of technology which directly or indirectly impact on people with disabilities and their participation in the economy (and to a lesser extent) society in general. For that reason this project doesn't significantly concern itself with behind the scenes machine-to-machine protocols such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and the like, because these don't tend to have a differential effect on people with disabilities versus people who are not disabled.

While the focus is E-Commerce, attention is also given to the accessibility of online information, and the ability for Australians to access new modes of Government service delivery.

1.5 Project Scope – People with Disabilities

This project addresses people with disabilities, who include a variety of disability groups and people with combinations of disabilities.

However the technology access barriers encountered by people who are either blind or vision impaired are the primary focus of this work.

The US Access Board identified the following groups of people with disabilities as requiring particular attention as affecting equal access to information technologies:

§ visual disabilities (e.g., blindness, low vision and lack of color perception)

§ hearing disabilities (e.g., hard of hearing, deafness)

§ people with physical disabilities (e.g., limited strength, reach or manipulation, tremor, lack of sensation)

§ people with speech disabilities

§ people with language, learning or cognitive disabilities (e.g., reading disabilities, thinking, remembering, sequencing disabilities)

§ other disabilities (e.g., epilepsy, short stature), and

§ individuals with any combination of these disabling conditions (e.g., deaf‑blindness)

(Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee Final Report to U.S. Access Board, May 12 1999, http://www.access-board.gov/pubs/eitaacrpt.htm

It needs to also be recognised that while most people generally focus on people with permanent disabilities, throughout their lives many people may temporarily have a variety of disabilities including reduced vision due to surgery or infection, a mobility impairment due to a broken leg, inability to use a hand, or type due to a broken arm, a hearing impairment due to an ear infection, and so on.

Although the perceived overall percentage of people with disabilities in our society may not seem that high, this is clearly not the case when we consider specific cross-sections of the population, such as people over 55. As we get older, our bodies are more likely to start exhibiting reduction in function in the senses, memory and comprehension, and of course physical agility and energy levels.

The most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics study (Disability, Ageing and Carers 1998, ABS, April 1999) indicates that 19% of the Australian community overall, or 3.6 million people have a disability, but this rises to approximately 35% for people aged 55 to 59; 44% for people aged 65 to 69; 60% for people aged 75 to 79; and 84% for people aged 85 and over.

It is widely recognised that we as a group live longer, and that the average age of the population is continuing to increase. It is estimated that by the year 2020 the number of people over 65 will have doubled from the numbers in that group in 1996. This means that over time there will increasingly be more people with disabilities, and that they will have those disabilities for longer.

A good summary of statistics relating to vision impairment in Australia is found in ‘Everybody’s Business’ (a Blind Citizens Australia report prepared by Gunela Astbrink). Some of these figures include:

§ 1.5% of people in Australia are estimated to have a vision impairment which cannot be corrected by glasses.

§ The ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) estimated that 13.6% of the population aged 75 or over had a vision impairment. Gunela Astbrink notes that this figure could be on the ‘low’ side due to the self-reporting approach the ABS took in this study.

§ Research in the UK found that 35% of people with a vision impairment also had a hearing impairment, and excluding hearing impairments, 67% of people with a vision impairment also had another disability such as arthritis.

§ Research carried out by the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) in the UK found that 59% of people with a vision impairment needed assistance in dealing with mail, leaflets and paying bills.

A document summarising the numbers of people in Europe with different disabilities can be found at http://www.eyecue.co.uk/eyecue/pats/text/6a.html

2 SHOPPING

This section examines different kinds of shopping and explores how new approaches to shopping provide opportunities and some major barriers for people with disabilities. Internet shopping is discussed in more detail in sections 4.6 and 4.7 below.

Shopping is something which everyone in our community needs to be able to do. Often, for people with disabilities, this basic task is quite difficult and cannot be conducted with independence or any degree of privacy.

Like the freedom of being able to drive a car, or receiving a key to the front door, the right to select and buy goods is central to democratic capitalist society. Daily, people with disabilities have rights and freedoms denied to them, which are taken for granted by most Australians. It is critical that the basic freedom of shopping remains available to all Australians, and that all people are able to shop with independence and also with the right to privacy.

Simple tasks like walking from store to store, browsing a supermarket shelf or reading through a department store catalogue, can be very difficult for many people with disabilities. E-Commerce developments have the potential to make some of these tasks easier, but aren't likely to do so in the near future for all disabled groups.

Some cannot reach or carry goods, others can't see the products in order to know what is available, or where to go to find what they require, others may need assistance in selecting the right kinds of products for their needs.

Some supermarkets offer a free service where a staff member assists the person with his or her shopping needs, but this varies from location to location, and more particularly is limited by available staffing resources at the store. As shops become larger and less personalised, as employee time needs to be accounted for more precisely, and as staffing numbers are cut through increased efficiencies and new technology, this kind of one-on-one service is at serious risk of being unavailable, or only being provided at a significant cost to the individual.

For these reasons, home-delivery shopping services have a lot of appeal for people with disabilities, so long as the catalogues of goods can be accessed, and so long as the extra cost of this style of shopping isn't prohibitive.

2.1 Modes of Shopping

2.1.1 Conventional Shopping

We are all familiar with traditional shopping where we physically travel to a shop, walk through the aisles and select our goods.

In such cases both physical disabilities and sensory disabilities can make this task difficult.

2.1.2 Telephone Shopping

Based on advertising, we can call and purchase goods over the phone e.g. DemTel, TVSN pizzas etc.

Such approaches can be very friendly to people with disabilities, because products are often both verbally and visually described and demonstrated. People don’t need to concern themselves with travel to and from a shop.

2.1.3 Internet Shopping

Internet shopping is becoming more popular where products are selected, a form is completed and the goods are shipped.

If the Internet shopping site is designed in accordance with the ‘Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0’ found at
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505
which are published by the Web Access Initiative (WAI), then there is a good chance that most people with disabilities (who have Internet access) will be able to benefit from the service.

Internet usage for shopping and other activities is discussed in more detail in sections 4.6 and 4.7 below.

2.1.4 Interactive TV and Appliance-Based Shopping

Soon to be available in Australia are set-top-box-based shopping services, where the TV and cable service are used to provide product information and ordering facilities.

At present none of these set-top-box products are accessible to people who are blind or vision impaired, and a variety of different and often proprietary operating systems are used in such devices.

It is hoped that Windows CE will evolve to incorporate more Active Accessibility functionality, but some companies have already had success producing voice access to specific Windows CE applications – e.g. The Productivity Works

Many newer devices are being based on the JAVA language. This also has strong potential for accessibility in the future.

Discussed further in section 7.3 below are smart appliances which in the future are expected to automate re-stocking the kitchen and bathroom, by reading product barcodes as discarded items are thrown into the ‘smart’ bin. You might be able to ask your microwave oven or refrigerator to order some ingredients, find the best price from online shopping sites and have them delivered that evening. However, this level of functionality is not present yet.

But because current set-top-boxes and early smart appliances are inexpensively made, and because they aren’t fully-fledged multi-function computers, they tend to have more limited input and output options. This could mean that people with various physical disabilities will also have difficulty gaining access to such services.

Depending on the disability and the technology, some of these newer forms of shopping have the potential to provide major advantages over more traditional shopping methods; however, those approaches that rely heavily on visual presentation, or which require use of inaccessible devices or software, will cause major problems for people who are blind or vision impaired. Those approaches which don't provide alternative input options may present barriers for people with physical disabilities.

The Trace Center explores a variety of possible approaches to accessing home-based appliances and public services at http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/irstds.html

2.2 Catalogues and Packaging

With the expanding use of XML for marking up digital data (such as store catalogues etc) it may be feasible for people who are blind or vision impaired to browse an online electronic catalogue on the web with textual product descriptions and a high degree of accessibility, even though sighted shoppers might be able to visually browse the catalogue in a visual format e.g. virtually walking down shop aisles - looking at pictures of the products as they move by.

For people who are blind or vision impaired, the glossy catalogues that appear in our letterboxes cannot usually be read using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning technology, due to the complex layout and reliance on pictures and the like. This problem of catalogue access is also a problem for home shopping services selling groceries etc, where one is often required to identify the goods required, based on catalogue item numbers.

The Royal National Institute for the Blind is currently researching the area of packaging and labelling for goods in supermarkets. Its research has found that many disabled and elderly people have extreme problems just opening many goods, due to packaging. This work also includes recommendations on labelling, and colour-contrast for packaging, in order for people to more easily identify and differentiate one product from another.

For more information on this project see 'The Forgotten Customers: One in Ten', at http://www.rnib.org.uk/wedo/research/sru/packag.htm

2.3 Barcodes

All major products now available for purchase contain a unique barcode which identifies them to the store's computers for check-out, stock control and the like. Some stores in the United States (and on trial in Australia) now offer their sighted shoppers a hand-held barcode reader which the shopper can use to scan the goods on the shelf, get pricing information, keep a tally of goods added to the trolley etc. At present, no stores are offering such a service which is accessible to people who are unable to read the visual display on these readers.

Technically, the task of adding a speech chip and storage onto a barcode reading device isn't that big a problem. In fact, several such products do exist. These work by storing a locally-built database on a personal computer, so that barcodes can be associated with a spoken message, or with a text description.

There are a few different kinds of barcode scanners, however, and those that can scan a product from all perspectives (such as the ones used at the check-out) are quite expensive. Cheaper barcode scanners - which require accurate alignment of the scanner over the product barcode - are readily available, but very difficult for blind or vision impaired people to reliably use.

Three examples of PC-based personal barcode reading systems the author is aware of are: An Australian barcode product sold by Dunbar Computers 08 82777190; a German barcode package sold by PC-Software-Developments, details at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jewish_software/quikinfo.htm and a US barcode product from Ann Morris Enterprises in the United States. Ann Morris Enterprises website is at http://www.annmorris.com

There are several barriers to accessing product barcode information for people who can't see product labelling, such as

§ There are literally millions of products which have a unique barcode. It’s neither feasible nor possible to store all the particulars of these products in a hand-held device.

§ The product's price isn't an inherent part of the product's identification – this value is stored in the store's computer, and can vary from store chain to store chain and even stores within a chain. So, any barcode reading system for use by people who can't read the visual display, needs to obtain the current pricing for the product being scanned, in addition to the product description.

§ Barcodes aren't usually printed in standard or readily identifiable locations on a product. Thus for a person who is blind, the task of even finding the barcode is a major challenge. Unless some kind of tactual clue were embossed near the barcode, a hand-held reader would still present difficulties to the shopper.

§ The audio output from a barcode reader would need a volume control to accommodate ambient noise and to provide a degree of privacy for the customer. Perhaps a socket for an ear-phone could also be added. An extreme example of this need might be a shopper who intentionally (or inadvertently) scanned a box of condoms, and the reader telling the whole aisle what the person had scanned.

2.4 Paying for Goods

Whether its trying to identify what notes one is holding, confirming that the right change has been issued, inserting a credit card correctly into the card

A DISCUSSION PAPER ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF ELECTRONIC
COMMERCE DEVELOPMENTS ON PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Prepared By

On Behalf of

With Funding from

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

PREFACE

Accessible E-Commerce Workshops

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS