YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — Wheelchair ramps have become so ubiquitous that those of us who don’t even need them might not know what to do without them — rolling luggage, for example, became popular partly because of the ramps.

But 34 years after then-president George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law — on July 26, 1990, after overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the U.S. Senate and House voted in favor of it — the digital equivalents of improvements like wheelchair ramps and accessible restrooms and closed-captioned television sometimes remain elusive, some stakeholders say.

Preston Gaylor of Stewartstown, York County — handing out maps at a pedestrian gate last week at the York State Fair — said Apple has done a good job over the years improving its “VoiceOver” software, which helps him navigate his iPhone. Gaylor, born legally blind, touches what looks like a blank screen (why waste battery powering a screen you can’t see), and VoiceOver tells him what apps he is touching or reads him text within them.

But he said solutions like VoiceOver can only do so much when the websites and apps themselves aren’t designed correctly. Examples of what can be difficult?

“Let’s say if you’re buying tickets to a concert or a festival or what have you,” Gaylor said.

Gaylor volunteers with local Lions Clubs and is working to advocate legislation that would define specifically what entities have to do in order to make their websites and apps accessible. Digital accessibility — broadly defined — is already required in many cases, but Gaylor explains the problem is, unlike a wheelchair ramp or an accessible restroom, a lot of organizations don’t know what digital accessibility looks like.

Mark Pound, CEO of a company called CurbCutOS , which helps organizations achieve digital accessibility, said companies succeed when they view accessibility as an opportunity rather than a requirement.

“It’s not just a compliance check box for legal,” Pound said. “There is a massive market opportunity and a cross-market appeal for this.”

He said the wheelchair ramps are one example — the majority of people who benefit from them nowadays aren’t even in wheelchairs, he said. Another example: closed-captioned television, required to help people with hearing loss but a benefit to anyone trying to follow dialogue on multiple screens in a loud bar.

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

abc27 Evening Newsletter

Another realm in which documents can be notoriously inaccessible, Pound said, is healthcare.

“If [someone with vision loss] is a patient in the healthcare system somewhere where there’s a tremendous amount of supporting documents, most likely they need a caregiver to then address that for them — because they can’t, because the [documents] are inaccessible,” Pound said.

Two digital accessibility tips for organizations large and small alike?

• It’s cheaper and better to build systems from the ground up to be accessible rather than trying to add accessibility later, Pound said.
• “Ask the consumer,” Gaylor said — in other words, people like him.

“We just want to be included — I would say, be needed,” Gaylor said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.