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TCS Research: Inventing to build sustainable futures
Highlights
- The future of accessibility is based on a fundamentally new approach to inclusivity. It’s not about adapting products or services for people with disabilities; it’s about designing every product or service so that it functions equally well for every customer without modification.
- The transition won’t happen quickly or easily and will require the time and effort of all stakeholders. But its development can be forecast across three horizons as sustaining and transformative innovation are catalysed by disruptive innovation.
- Combined with physical environments designed without obstacles, this new approach will help create an equitable world where everyone, including over one billion people with disabilities (about 16% of the global population) disabled people globally, can fully participate and collaborate.
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From social obligation to innovative catalyst
Until the end of the last century, corporations took a reactive approach to accessibility, treating it as a box to tick. They tended to focus on compliance with legislation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the US (1990) and the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in the UK (1995), or the implementation of recommendations such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), first launched by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1998.
But over the last few decades, in line with the rise of DEI initiatives, companies began to embrace accessibility as a social good that could also serve as a catalyst for innovation. That’s because designing for people with disabilities (PWDs) didn’t simply improve the lives of employees while making products and services more saleable to the potential over one billion disabled customers around the world. The impact has, in fact, been far greater: Many innovations initially created to assist PWDs are now taken for granted by everyone. For instance, if you’re an able-bodied person who regularly says “Hey, Siri” or “Alexa,” accessibility has made your life more convenient, too.
Accessibility unlocks vast, untapped potential, transforming the brand experience not just for people with disabilities, but for everyone.
Here are a few examples:
- Voice recognition was developed for the visually impaired and motor-disabled but has been adopted in smart phones and smart homes.
- Text-to-speech programs initially used by the visually impaired are now common features in reading apps and virtual assistants.
- Noise-cancelling earphones designed for the hard-of-hearing are now used by travellers and students in noisy environments.
But as beneficial as innovations such as these have been for bothPWDs and mainstream customers, they’re typically developed with a fragmented approach. Creating solutions for one disability might actually make it less accessible for another disability; for instance, using a voice feature for people with visual impairments will make the solution inaccessible to people with hearing impairments. This common practice means solutions can’t scale, and industries inadvertently widen the gaps between disabilities and solutions for the masses.
Further, despite evolving attitudes and heightened awareness, many companies still approach and discuss accessibility through an outdated lens of accommodation. Visit the typical “accessibility” page at most corporate websites and you’ll find information about a company’s support for its disabled employees and customers rather than visions for a fully inclusive future that renders obsolete the need of detailing how accessibility makes something different.
How do we break out of this reactive cycle? With a proactive approach that makes accessibility an inherent element of everything a corporation does. The foundational philosophy of accessibility believes that everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, deserves equal access to information, services, and environments. So, instead of tailoring solutions as add-ons for people with disabilities, this new way of thinking encourages the creation of experiences that adapt to the full spectrum of human abilities by designing everything for limitations. “At its heart: Designing for accessibility means designing a better world for everyone” says Dr. Jadhav
Designing for limitations
As boundaries fade between assistive and mainstream technologies, the next frontier of accessibility won’t design solutions for able-bodied users and then consider how they can be adapted for PWDs. Rather, they will seamlessly adapt to everyone’s needs by designing ALWAYS for limitations.
Doing this rather than designing for disabilities ensures that technology is empowering and adaptive, regardless of changing circumstances. It’s also important to consider users who don’t disclose disabilities, whether out of concern for stigma or privacy, but who still require accessible features. Today’s design theory targeting disability also falls short by addressing static requirements for PWDs without considering dynamic variables such as a noisy environment that might make a voice assistant hard to hear or low lighting that might make a touchscreen hard to see. Resolving this is the key aspect of designing for limitations with a streamlined, effective design that serves the widest possible audience.
Accessibility’s new paradigm will address the complex nature of limitations that often means PWDs must use multiple tools to manage daily life. And it’s not simply solving situational challenges; it’s also understanding how certain modalities won’t serve a person with multiple disabilities, such as someone who is both blind and deaf or living with motor and cognitive issues. Assistive technologies like screen readers and speech recognition can help in some cases, but solutions designed for limitations will feature modalities that accommodate multiple disabilities while also seamlessly adjusting for various environments and other factors.
Four key principles define this new philosophical framework for accessibility:
- Moving beyond compliance: Accessibility is no longer a function of meeting regulations but becomes an ongoing pursuit, an active practice that evolves with changing societal and technological landscapes.
- Thinking beyond disability: The scope of accessibility widens as lines blur between assistive technology and technologies used by mainstream customers. This shifts the focus from accommodating the specific needs of a small user base to creating value for everyone.
- Finding untapped potential: Businesses can lead by harnessing opportunities that are often overlooked.
- Creating an equitable vision: Moving away from specialized products that segregate fosters an inclusive and equitable environment through which PWDs can fully participate in and contribute to society.
Within the structure of this unique, multi-dimensional philosophy, companies can integrate emerging technologies in strategic roadmaps that generate social and business value. But they must also go beyond technological advancements to advocate for systemic changes supporting accessibility. This includes promoting policies that mandate inclusive practices across all sectors—from education to employment—and creating environments that prioritize accessibility, eliminating barriers that have historically sidelined people with disabilities.
Looking toward future horizons
Philosophical and functional change on this level will take coordinated, intentional effort over many years. And a future of accessibility without any sense of afterthought is best viewed through a three-horizons model that divides innovation into three types: sustaining, disruptive, and transformative:
- Horizon 1: Currently, sustaining innovation is maintaining the status quo while being catalysed by early elements of transformative innovation.
- Horizon 2: Next, sustaining innovation and transformative innovation will intersect with disruptive innovation in a triangle of choice with outcomes that are difficult to predict.
- Horizon 3: Finally, transformative innovation will become the dominant ongoing force, supported by sustaining innovation of the past and subject to disruptive innovation of the future.
A three-horizons model that drives innovation
Explaining the difference between what’s currently available in Horizon 1 and what we know to be possible in Horizon 3 can be exemplified in how to help a blind customer make an online hotel reservation and experience smooth navigation during her stay. With current Horizon 1 tools, they can learn about room types, prices, locations, and basic amenities. What they won’t receive are details about the hotel’s physical environment or audio cues as they move through its public spaces and their room. In a holistically inclusive Horizon 3 experience, however, they will receive guidance that gives them information such as: “Room 402 is on the fourth floor, 12 meters from the elevator. The pathway is smooth marble with tactile floor indicators every three meters. The room’s door has braille signage and provides voice-activated entry.” Wayfinding guidance will provide detailed descriptions of the hotel’s environment, noting, for example, that they will turn left past an indoor fountain with the sound of burbling water and pass a textured wall on their right that marks the hallway to their room. Once in their room, they will know the bed is 22 inches high with space beneath it for mobility aids, that the bathroom includes a variety of grab bars and a roll-in shower, and that the furniture’s layout is consistent and unobstructed. Finally, when they leave their room, real-time navigation will describe nearby amenities and alert them to temporary obstacles like housekeeping carts in the hallway.
A bridge to the future
Just as wayfinders already exist as a sustaining innovation, other accessible technologies will continue to evolve and become integral features in products and services designed for everyone. They include:
- Accessibility automation such as document checkers, voice assistants, and alternatives to touchscreen controls.
- Workplace assistance that uses technology for vision, hearing, mobility, and cognitive issues.
- Authentication like multimodal passwords and gesture-based interfaces.
- Assistive technologies such as support devices and virtual reality (VR) therapies.
It is, of course, impossible to predict what disruptive innovations might occur in Horizon 2 between the other horizons that we can more easily envision. In particular, there’s no way to know how AI might affect any aspect of accessibility.
TCS is already optimizing AI’s potential with a transformational leverages multimodal generative AI with text, image, video, and audio models for personalized, real-time support. Whether helping a blind user read a label, recognize a face, or navigate a space, or a deaf user engage with audio-visual content, it equalizes experiences by bridging the gap between individuals and their environments. Specifically, this framework is enabling products like an AI companion provides guided support across digital transactions and physical interactions with enhanced manageability in high-stakes or cognitively demanding situations like banking, education, healthcare, and travel. By focusing on limitations, this companion removes participation barriers and fosters true inclusion in two ways: through sensory augmentation and enhanced assistive tech, and by addressing environmental limitations with innovative human-computer interactions. “Our AI companion recognizes a user’s mental model, triggers ability-centric nudges, and understands their limitations without even asking the user,” says Jadhav.
Future of accessibility
TCS Research & Innovation is also laying the groundwork for an AI-driven future through participation in projects that advance accessibility. They include:
- Vocal accessibility standards: In cooperation with international stakeholders including the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the Royal College of Art (RCA), TCS is helping creators design accessible voice-related products and services that ensure inclusivity by addressing an array of variables from local accents and cultural context to neurodiversity and technological limitations.
- British Sign Language (BSL): Converting natural language text into sign language comes with specific challenges: BSL has unique syntax, grammar that’s often more complex than spoken or written English, and relies on linguistic, visual, and motion data. TCS built a model specific to the banking domain that provides real-time translation in a lightweight, mobile-based framework that can be used on the go. This proof of concept demonstrates a scalable and practical approach to multimodal, low-resource machine translation challenges.
An equitable world
It’s no small task. But putting a focus on limitations within the right frameworks will lead to technology that empowers, environments that include, and experiences that give dignity to all. The goal is to build a future where anyone can navigate life with confidence and ease. By pivoting from a spirit of compliance to one of innovation, enterprise also receives benefits like access to the best talent, an expanded customer base, and features that improve products and services for every customer.
This vision requires a collective effort from all stakeholders: researchers, designers, businesses, policymakers, and the community at large. Together, they can create a future that’s not only accessible but equitable, sustainable, and profoundly human. The common goal is now embracing the transformative power of designing for limitations, so that every individual, regardless of circumstance, can participate fully in the world we build together.