Policy Delphi Report: Access to Wireless Technologies for People with Disabilities: Issues, Opportunities and Policy Options

WIRELESS RERC TECHNICAL PAPER

Access to Wireless Technologies for People with Disabilities: Issues, Opportunities and Policy Options

Findings of a Policy Delphi

Paul M.A. Baker, Nathan W. Moon, Alan Bakowski

Wireless RERC[1]/Center for Advanced Communications Policy(CACP)

Georgia Institute of Technology,

Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

paul.baker@cacp.gatech.edu, nathan.moon@cacp.gatech.edu

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Keywords

accessibility, policy Delphi, disability, electronic and information technology (E&IT), information and computing technology (ICT), policy, sensory impairment, telecommunications, wireless technology

Abstract

The ongoing innovation and development of wireless technologies has made a wide array of devices and services increasingly available in the United States; however, significant policy, economic and technological barriers to access of those technologies still exist for many people with disabilities (Baker and Bellordre, 2003). More than 51.2 million people, about 18 percent of the population, have some kind of long-term or conditional disability, suggesting that barriers to the adoption of wireless technologies affect a significant constituency (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2006).  Facilitation of equal access to technology-related services and devices, and wireless accessibility issues, can be addressed to varying degrees by the enforcement of existing legislation and regulations, augmented by new initiatives in disability and telecommunications policy and research to support increased access to wireless technologies that address the needs of the disability community.

Subsequent to identification of key issues surrounding wireless technology adoption by people with disabilities (Wireless RERC, 2003), the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless Technologies for People with Disabilities (Wireless RERC) conducted a policy Delphi to probe key stakeholders’ opinions of what constitute the most significant issues surrounding the adoption and use of technologies by people with disabilities, as a precursor to the development of new policy approaches.  Delphi participants represented several different areas of involvement with wireless technologies for people with disabilities: disability advocates, disability/wireless technology policymakers, and product developers/manufacturers.  The Delphi instrument was arranged in four categories (forecasts, issues, goals, and options) over four key themes (access/awareness, economic, policy/regulatory, and technology).  Respondents assessed the reliability of forecasts related to the future of wireless technologies, ranked the importance of key issues and barriers to increased wireless accessibility, and provided input for the subsequent development of potential policy initiatives to increase access to these technologies.

Participants in the policy Delphi supported several predictions.  All respondents believe that the “variety of services and applications available via wireless technologies will increase.”  Likewise, those surveyed unanimously expect that “as wireless technologies become more established, they will be increasingly integrated into everyday applications.” Drawing on the results of three rounds of polling, the Wireless RERC developed a set of policy options and “fine-tuned” them using participating stakeholders from the disability community, wireless industry, and policymakers.  In addition to the specific policy options developed (including generation of filings before the Federal Communications Commission), one of the goals of the Wireless RERC has been to use the products of its research to generate policy recommendations and other research initiatives that will increase the accessibility of wireless technologies and services for persons with disabilities. 

1.  Introduction

While the adoption of wireless technologies in the United States continues to become increasingly widespread, significant issues of access to these technologies persist for people with disabilities.  In the U.S., more than 51.2 million people, constituting about 18 percent of the population, have some kind of long-term condition or disability, signaling that barriers to the adoption of wireless technologies affects a substantial population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2006).  Equal access to technology-related services and devices and wireless accessibility issues can be addressed by legislation and regulations, as well as options developed from disability and telecommunications policy and research. 

In response to these issues, the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless Technologies for People with Disabilities (Wireless RERC)[2] conducted a policy Delphi to probe key stakeholders’ opinions on the most significant issues surrounding the adoption and use of technologies by people with disabilities.  The Wireless RERC policy Delphi, conducted between October 2004 (Round 1) and May 2006 (Round 3), probed key stakeholders’ opinions of the most significant issues for the adoption and use of mobile wireless technologies by individuals with disabilities.  Specifically, the Delphi asked participants to assess the reliability of forecasts, importance of issues, desirability of goals, and feasibility of proposed options, in four areas: access and awareness, economic, regulatory and policy, and technology.

2. Methodology

The data for our findings was provided through a three round electronic Delphi (e-Delphi) method.  The e-Delphi method is derived from the original Delphi method developed by Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey at the Rand Corporation during the 1950s and 1960s (Dalkey, 1969; Dalkey, Brown & Cochran, 1970).  The Delphi method, as it was originally conceived, is a tool for military and economic forecasting based upon iterative surveys of experts in the given area under consideration (Cornish, 1977).  Modern Delphi method relies upon expert opinion, professional experience, and sometimes intuition and tacit knowledge, in order to render a forecast on a given issue of importance.

Traditional Delphi method relies upon an iterative survey of experts with the intention of developing a better understanding, usually through the formation of a consensus, of problems, approaches, or future trends.  A policy Delphi modifies those goals somewhat, and seeks to develop pro and con arguments about policy issues and their resolutions (Turoff, 1970).  This technique, employed here, allows a panel of experts to contribute elements to a complex situation with the intention of building a composite model of the situation under study.  As Turoff and others defined it, a policy Delphi is less about the use of experts to generate a policy decision.  Rather, it is more about employing a group of “advocates and referees” to present all the options and supporting evidence for a given issue, and “generates the strongest possible opposing views on the potential resolutions of a major policy issue.” (Linstone and Turoff, 1975)

Policy Delphis have any of three important objectives: 1) To ensure that all possible options have been proposed for consideration; 2) To estimate the impact and consequences of any particular option; and 3) To examine and estimate the acceptability of any particular option.  As conducted, the Wireless RERC policy Delphi considers possible options to increase use of and access to wireless technologies for persons with disabilities.  The most important objective, however, was to consider the feasibility and acceptability of the options proposed. Policy Delphis rely upon six phases in the communication process between its participants: 1) formulation of the issues; 2) exposing the options; 3) determining initial positions on the issues; 4) exploring and obtaining the reasons for disagreements; 5) evaluating the underlying reasons; and 6) reevaluating the options (Linstone and Turoff, 1975). 

In the case of the policy Delphi on wireless technologies and people with disabilities, an initial set of issues and goals were formulated prior to the first round through the development of a policy matrix and literature review.  During the first two rounds of the Delphi, these issues and goals were presented to the panel for review.  Open-ended responses were used to help formulate additional issues and goals through the Delphi.  In addition, open-ended responses were used to gauge reasons for disagreement whenever a proposed issue or goal failed to receive a strong majority of support.  In the first two rounds, options were also proposed and discussed, but the third, and final, round of the Delphi was committed solely to a consideration of the feasibility of options.

Policy Delphis adhere to four key principles: anonymity, which minimizes outside influences on the predictions panelists make and allows for candid responses; asynchronicity, the ability of participants to take part when and how they choose to; controlled feedback, as the results of one round of questions are used to inform the creation of the next; and statistical response, taking the opinions of experts on a given area and converting them into quantitative data.     The Policy Delphi method is an iterative polling technique.  Typically, a pencil-and-paper policy Delphi could run five or six rounds using such a technique.  However, the use of an electronic Delphi, via an Internet site conceived for such a specific purpose, means that the Delphi may be satisfactorily completed in fewer rounds and with greater convenience for the participants.  The current e-Delphi was conducted via the Human-Environmental Observatory’s (HERO) e-Delphi system, hosted by Pennsylvania State University.  This e-Delphi was conducted over the course of three rounds.

The Wireless RERC Policy Delphi, conducted between October and November 2004 (Round 1), June and July 2005 (Round 2), and February and May 2006 (Round 3) probed key stakeholders’ opinions of the most significant issues for the adoption and use of mobile wireless technologies by individuals with disabilities.  About 70 of 240 invited stakeholders participated in the Delphi.  Participating stakeholders included members of the disability community, wireless industry, and policymakers.  The instrument asked participants to assess the reliability of forecasts, importance of issues, desirability of goals, and feasibility of proposed options, in four areas: access and awareness, economic, regulatory and policy, and technology.

The results of the first two rounds of the Delphi are presented first.  The first round asked a set of broad questions to determine a basis for developing more specific and substantive questions.  Open-ended questions, in which participants were permitted to provide any answer they wished to a given question, were also important in the development of subsequent questions.  In the second round of the Delphi, participants were presented with results to those questions asked in the initial round that generated a strong consensus among the stakeholders, as well as new questions generated from the results of the first Delphi.  In the third, and final, round of the Delphi, participants were presented with the results of the first two rounds.  More importantly, however, a set of detailed options was offered so that participants could judge their feasibility as policy.  These option items were developed from results of previous options proposed in the first two rounds of the policy Delphi, as well as responses to open-ended questions.  An important difference here, however, is that the options were presented as specific actions to be taken and providing enough flexibility within each proposal to mitigate potential differences of opinion between stakeholders.

3. Overall Results

In the first round (see Appendix 1) of the policy Delphi, three findings distinguished themselves in particular: 1) problems with device compatibility; 2) ongoing awareness issues, especially on the part of manufacturers; and 3) economic concerns focusing less on the affordability of devices, but rather, more on the general level of employment of people with disabilities.  Device incompatibility or poor interoperability was cited as the most important technology issue by the Delphi panel.  Seventy (70) percent of respondents rated this “very important” and 22 percent rated it as “important.”  Compliance with Section 508 and Section 255 was also rated as very important (67 percent), but the importance of interoperability is a more significant finding.  This finding suggests that users and experts perceive the need for accessibility standards, a topic probed more in depth in a successive round of the policy Delphi.  The incompatibility issue was rated as more important than the development of new and innovative wireless applications, spectrum allocation, and wireless voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services.  Second, the number one awareness/access goal of the Delphi panel was to encourage manufacturers of wireless devices to include persons with disabilities in the review and evaluation of assistive or universally designed products and technologies.  Eighty-one (81) percent of the participants replied that some system for product evaluation was a very desirable goal, and an additional 16 percent found that it was at least desirable.  Third, the main economic goal expressed by panelists was related to increased employment opportunities for people with disabilities.  When asked to rate the desirability of two economic goals, respondents favored increasing tax incentives for employers to hire people with disabilities over creating a national policy to lower the cost of mobile wireless devices.  Additionally, when asked what goals would have the most benefit for people with disabilities, panelist responses ranged from, “better access to education, increase job and vocational training,” to “more people with disabilities working side by side within companies,” to “enforcing the ADA,” to a desire for employers “to hire based upon the ability to perform the work without regard to the disability.”  These responses seem to indicate that employment opportunities are still the primary economic barrier for people with disabilities, more so than high costs of adopting new technologies. 

The second round (see Appendix 1) of the policy Delphi sought to elaborate on some of the key issues and goals established in the first round.  First of all, the second round established some of the primary issues pertaining to manufacturer and designer awareness of disability issues.  In particular, the participants agreed that while manufacturers fail to design appropriately for people with disabilities, in reality, a much larger divide exists between designers/manufacturers, consumers/users, and retailers/intermediaries.  Manufacturers are often oblivious to the barriers which face consumers with disabilities, but likewise, potential consumers of wireless products lack information necessary to select and use such technologies.  This gap between the producer and consumer may be bridged in several ways, including focus groups or “user forums” that might give manufacturers necessary input into understanding the needs of consumers with disabilities, while ensuring that users play an active role in the design process, better promotion and advertising of accessibility features by manufacturers; and perhaps most important, outreach and education of retailers who serve as intermediaries between the two groups.  Second, the Delphi revealed that while accessibility requirements were one of the key limitations of wireless devices for people with disabilities, participants generally believed that making such requirements mandatory was not a feasible solution.  Like most of the goals engaged by the respondents, market-based solutions and voluntary options were generally seen as most desirable and feasible.  Finally, this insistence on voluntary options extended to policymaking, in which the Delphi group agreed on interagency coordination and increased coordination between public and private research as desirable.

Round 3 Results

In the third, and final, round of the Wireless RERC’s policy Delphi, participating stakeholders were presented with the results of the first two rounds.  Thus, they were able to consider how the group voted as a whole on the forecasts, issues, and goals presented in the first two rounds.  Delphi participants were also informed about which questions elicited a consensus among respondents (as in the forecasts) and which ones resulted in discernable blocs of opposition (regulatory and economic goals, for instance).  Accompanying this presentation of the results from the first two rounds, the third round of the Delphi offered a series of policy options and asked participants to judge their feasibility as policy.