The Creative Case for Diversity

We live in a digital culture – a world where the web, computers,mobiles, games and gismos are an essential part of the daily lives of most of us. Disabled people have been at the heart of this world from the start, resulting in the W3C international web accessibility initiative, and myriad technical adaptations allowing flexibility, freedom, openness and access - often beyond our wildest imaginings.

Yet the digital world is complex, and the positioning of disability within it, still more so:

“What is striking about the history of the internet, its contemporary forms, and future visions, is that disability is both highly visible and curiously invisible in its digital landscapes…”
(Quote from 'Digital disability: the social construction of disability in new media' by Gerard Goggin, Christopher Newell)

There is high visiblity as clients and consumers – with the web providing access to people in ways that would have been unthought of ten years ago. The recent death of Steve Jobs prompted blogger Tim Carmody (father of a disabled son who gained significant developmental benefit through using Apple products) to comment:

“’Accessible’ means ‘something everyone can use.’ In pop culture and consumer technology, “accessible” sometimes means things that are easy for lots of people to understand or enjoy. In the disability community, “accessible” means something is open to people of all abilities, usually because it was designed with them in mind. And in both spheres, “accessible” can mean something almost anyone can both find and afford. Like anything else, Apple’s iThings can sometimes seem too complex, too presumptuous, too expensive. But really, even with their limitations, they’re amazingly accessible in every sense of the word.”
(Quote from ‘This Stuff Doesn’t Change the World’: Disability and Steve Jobs’ Legacy' by Tim Carmody in Wired.com)