Prioritizing One Group Over Another is Bad Accessibility

I seldom appreciate the thought of someone else making decisions on my behalf. But this is particularly concerning when these decisions relate to accommodations of my blindness that are based on theory rather than fact.

Case in point, the orders from the city of Toronto to remove a wheelchair ramp from Signs Restaurant as it posed a threat to blind or visually impaired pedestrians by extending less than a metre onto city property. Signs is a restaurant whose wait staff are all deaf, and patrons order through American Sign Language, depicted in images on their menus. This story was first reported in the Toronto Star.

Let me summarize everything that is wrong with this plan, aided by an excellent critique by the AODA Alliance. In short, a restaurant who employs person with a specific disability (deafness and hard of hearing), who also wishes to accommodate persons with other disabilities (mobility issues), is barred from doing so on the presumption their efforts will hamper a third disability group (the blind or visually impaired).

Why should the implication be that the latter group trumps the needs of the former two? The ramp after all, does contain Braille (the name of the restaurant and the ramp's manufacturer); the width left for pedestrians is only 2 centimeters shy of the required limit. It would appear it is easily navigable with proper cane usage, and bright orange spray paint at its end would make it distinctive enough for most low vision users. An accommodation is available that can make everyone happy.

I am troubled by the knee-jerk reaction by the city to make changes which, though well-meaning I am sure, take the universal access and accessibility movement backwards. This suggests a hierarchy of needs: one in which those with one disability are given precedence over others. I resent that such changes are done with the intention of benefitting me, though they will not truly affect me all that much. I can't say the same for those with mobility aids who would benefit from a ramp but are being asked to go without.

Some time ago I wrote about the give and take of accessibility between the needs of users with disabilities and the developers that provide digital tools for their use. This story suggests there is also anact of balance between groups of disabled users themselves. It doesn't make sense to eliminate all images or video from a website intended for a sighted audience so as not to inadvertently exclude the blind; these visual elements may be essential for users who are deaf, are on the autism spectrum, or people who just generally prefer pictures over text. The blind should be accommodated with proper alt text and audio descriptions, and no one need miss out at another's expense.

Similarly, audio-only content should not be removed from a site merely because it risks excluding those who are hard of hearing or deaf. With properly-done transcripts which communicate the spoken word but also the emotion with which it is delivered, no one need be at a disadvantage.

There are other examples of course, but I hope I have made my point clear. It is better to creatively accommodate everyone rather than seek to modify one's own product for the benefit of one group at the expense of another.