No Limits to Reaching Information

New Technologies Allow Physically Challenged to Access Online Information

IBM hired its first employee with a disability in 1914. Since then, IBM has maintained a strong commitment to hiring the best candidate for the job, regardless of age or physical abilities, and to helping all employees reach their maximum potential at work.

As part of that commitment, IBM scientists, engineers and developers have embraced the idea of "innovation that matters" to individuals, business and society. The most promising of those inventions have moved from the laboratory to alphaWorks, where developers and other people, including those with disabilities, test the technologies and give valuable feedback.

In our high-tech world, it is important that all members of society have access to vital information. Work that originally enabled individuals with vision, hearing, motor and cognitive limitations to fully participate in society is now also being applied to aid the aging workforce. As the world's population grows older and workers stay on the job well past traditional retirement age, the maturing labor force needs accessible information technology to stay productive and live independently.

Increasingly, accessibility research seeks to find ways to make all technology and information accessible to people with disabilities. Using principles of universal access and inclusive design, rather than addressing accessibility needs by specialized hardware and software solutions, researchers seek ways to make existing solutions accessible.

IBM is an industry leader in its commitment to make its own products accessible, in its active participation with advocacy groups for the disabled, and in its promotion of uniform accessibility standards around the world.

New accessibility technologies now available on alphaWorks include the Mouse Smoothing Software, which helps people with hand tremors use a mouse; Keyboard Optimizer, a utility program that optimizes keyboard response settings to suit a user's typing style, Head Tracking Pointer, an application that, using an inexpensive camera, lets users control a mouse pointer by aiming their face around the screen, aDesigner, a disability simulator that helps Web designers ensure that their pages are accessible and usable by the visually impaired; and Web Adaptation Technology, which allows individuals to make adjustments to the way Web pages are presented and the way information is entered with the keyboard.