This article is based on material originally created for my employer, Fable. A condensed, edited, and illustrated version of this content will be available there soon; I will update this post with a link to it when it becomes available. While many of these stories are well known in the disability and accessibility communities, they tend to be told as urban legends. I wanted to actually research and source some of these frequently used examples.

Introduction

“Mater artium necessitas.”

-- William Horman, Vulgaria Viri do, 1519

In the disability community, it is a deeply believed and often repeated fact that improving accessibility leads to innovations that improve the world for everyone. Necessity is the mother of invention is, after all, a proverb so frequently quoted that it has become a cliché. And yet, people with disabilities still find ourselves left out of research and design, and all too often we don’t get a seat at the product development table. This leaves our inventions overlooked, unrecognized, and sometimes unrealized.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

– Kin Hubbard

In this article, I will discuss the details of 10 innovations throughout history that were only possible through unlocking the power of accessibility and including the voices of people with disabilities. I have also included a lengthy list of sources at the end of the post, for those who would like to dive in deeper and find out more. Just because something is a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true, after all.

I hope you’ll learn a thing or two as you read, be inspired in your own accessibility work, and be equipped with practical examples you can use as you advocate for moving accessibility forward in your organization.

The Typewriter (1844)

"This is what thrills me about typewriters. They are meant to do one thing and one thing only, and with the tiniest amount of effort, maintenance, it will last a thousand years"

-- Tom Hanks

Today’s computers wouldn’t be possible without the keyboard. Modern keyboards are an evolution of the typewriter, an invention that would revolutionize writing. Often credited as one of the first inventors of the typewriter, Pellegrino Turri was inspired to begin his work in order to assist his lover, the blind Italian countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano, to write him letters. Pellegrino and Agostino Fantoni, Carolina’s brother, created the cembalo scrivano (which translates literally to “writing harpsichord”), the first typewriter that was proven to be functional. To make the machine work, Pellegrino also invented carbon paper, which is sheet paper with a dark coating on one side, used to make copies of what is written or typed on top of it. With the cembalo scrivano, Carolina was able to communicate more easily with Pellegrino by typing him letters.

Audiobooks (1932)

“Never for one moment can I think of it as a machine; how possessively I refer to it, but honestly, I cannot visualize being without it, it has become such a vital part of my daily living."

-- a blind woman from Philadelphia who received a recorded audiobook for the first time

The ability to easily produce printed writing isn’t enough, however, to fully participate in society. What about access to the written word? Thanks to the invention of Braille in 1824 by Louis Braille, the written world was slowly being unlocked for those unable to read print. But Braille is bulky, expensive, can be difficult to learn, and is slow to read. While still highly desirable even today, it’s not suitable for every person or every application. A better solution was clearly needed.

That solution would come from a blind man named Robert Irwin, the executive director of the American Foundation for The Blind in 1932. “May I ask you,” he wrote to the library of congress, “what you would think of printing books for the blind on phonograph records?”

These recordings rapidly gained popularity among people with and without disabilities who wanted to enjoy books. Today, thanks to companies like Amazon’s Audible, the market for audiobooks is approximately 6.83 billion dollars, and is growing at about 26% per year.

The TTY (1964)

“I depended on hearing family members, friends, and neighbors to make telephone calls for me. Receiving the TTY was the dawn of my independence. It was an indescribable feeling!”

-- Colton Jannusch

You might be surprised to learn that a direct link can be drawn from the typewriter to the modem, and thus, the modern internet. In1964, a Deaf physicist named Dr. Robert H. Weitbrecht had an epiphany. He realized that existing teletype machines, effectively typewriters hooked up to telegraphy systems and primarily used for news distribution, could be adapted for telephone communication.

However, these machines were designed for wired connections, not the standard telephone lines used by the general public. So he, along with colleagues Dr. James Marsters and Andrew Saks, founded Applied Communications Corporation and developed the first acoustic coupler, enabling teletype machines to connect to regular telephone lines. This allowed people who are Deaf and hard of hearing to communicate by sending text messages over the phone. The same acoustic coupler Dr. Weitbrecht created would go on to allow people to connect their computers to the telephone, paving the way for early dial-up bulletin board systems, and eventually, the wide-spread adoption of the internet.

In the same way that the typewriter first opened up a new way of communicating for the blind, and was later reused in the creation of a new way to communicate for the Deaf, it often happens that designing with accessibility in mind can solve multiple accessibility problems at once.

Text To Speech (1970)

“The first time I really understood that Stephen Hawking was going to be using Dennis Klatt’s speech synthesizer was when I heard him talk. I thought, wow, I’m watching Stephen Hawking and out comes Dennis’s voice. It was kind of startling.”

-- Joseph Perkell, a colleague of Dennis Klatt

But the TTY wouldn’t be the end of the communications revolution for people with disabilities. What if people who are blind didn’t have to wait for a human to record an audiobook for them? What if those who are unable to speak could type, and have a machine speak for them?

In 1970, James Bliss founded Telesensory Systems Inc., pioneering technology for people who are blind or have low vision. Partnering with Professors Jonathan Allen and Dennis Klatt, they developed Speech Plus Prose 2000—the first real-time, unlimited-vocabulary text-to-speech system.

Their invention would be helpful to far more than just those who are blind, though. If you’ve ever heard Steven Hawking’s voice, you’ve heard Professor Klatt’s creation. In fact, he modeled that voice after a younger version of himself. And today, text to speech benefits anyone who can’t read, due to disability, or their current situation (like driving), or just because reading might be inconvenient for them.

The Kurzweil Reading Machine (1975)

“…technology is providing more powerful means for people with disabilities to get an education, work in any field, in terms of equality. It's really the great leveler. And we don't need computers that have broad, flexible intelligence. The disabled person provides the broad, flexible human intelligence,”

-- Ray Kurzweil

It would only take one more creation to complete the transformation of the way blind people consume information. In 1975, Ray Kurzweil, a famous futurist, inventor, author, and AI scientist founded Kurzweil Computer Products, where he created the Kurzweil Reading Machine.

Ray recognized that written material could be a barrier to people who are blind. Instead of inventing a new solution, he wanted to combine existing technologies into a form that worked for real people.

Combining OCR, text-to-speech and scanner technology, Ray created the first machine capable of converting written text into speech. This enabled blind people to access printed materials completely independently; thanks to OCR, they no longer had to depend on a human to read or type the text at all.
Ray went on to create Kurzweil Educational Systems, a software company that helps people who are blind, dyslexic, or experience other cognitive challenges to access education like never before.

Improving accessibility isn’t always about inventing completely new technologies from whole cloth. Sometimes, it’s about listening to people’s real needs, and figuring out how to use the things that already exist to help with solutions.

Autocorrect (1966)

“I’m on suffering street. I meant Dufferin street! Autocorrect. 🙄”

-- Krista Pereira, Fable

Autocorrect has an accessibility origin that long predates the smartphone, T9 typing, or the word processor. It was created by Warren Teitelman in 1966 at MIT and later refined at Xerox in 1972.

Warren’s long nights in the MIT computer lab led to typos. He thought the computer should automatically fix these errors for him. So, he created a system called DWIM (Do What I Meant). The DWIM system autocorrected frequently made typos based on context. This innovative idea eventually led to the autocorrect feature that is used widely today.

But Warren’s initial system wasn’t universally helpful. He designed it based on his mistakes, so it only worked well for him. When another programmer used DWIM, it falsely autocorrected a typo and deleted all the files from his computer. The angry programmer complained that DWIM should instead stand for “Damn Warren’s infernal machine!”

Warren had designed a solution for himself, without looking at the needs of other users. While autocorrect is a powerful accessibility feature used by almost everyone with a smartphone, similar issues caused by exclusion continue to plague us today. Did you know that 41 percent of names, especially non-western ones, are autocorrected into something else? In order to design systems that work for everyone, we need to make sure that everyone, including people with disabilities, is involved. Otherwise we end up with features that should be revolutionary, but instead end up deleting our files and erasing our names.

The Modern Touch Screen (1999)

"Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue. And after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible."

-- Steve Jobs

The touch screen is another example of technology that didn’t gain mass-market adoption until people with disabilities were involved. Primitive touch screens existed long before 1999. However, they were generally part of a large monitor on a desk in front of the user, they only supported a single finger, and didn’t yet allow for gestures. People who tried them found that extending their hand out in front of them to tap icons all day just made their arm sore, and wasn’t any easier than just using a mouse and keyboard.

But in 1999, John Elias and Wayne Westerman would found a company called FingerWorks. They were creating a product based on research they’d done at the University Of Delaware to help people who had acquired repetitive stress injuries. FingerWorks released the iGesture Pad, a one-hand touchpad that connected to a computer like a mouse. It supported gestures like pinch-to-zoom, two-finger rotate, and multi-finger swipe and scroll. This low-impact navigation tool was helpful for people with repetitive stress injuries or disabilities.

Another company would have a vision for how this new creation could help more than just those with accessibility needs, though. In order to create the iPhone, Apple acquired FingerWorks. John and Wayne’s expertise and intellectual property, originally developed for people with disabilities, became the key piece in the iPhone’s revolutionary new interface.

The Clapper (1984)

“Clap on, clap off, the clapper!”

-- TV Jingle

Perhaps the ultimate example of the popular appeal of accessibility is The Clapper, the first widely used smart home device. Able to turn off lights, switches, or plugs just by clapping, it was the first affordable way for those with physical challenges to control lights, fans, and other home appliances.

While the clapper was invented by Carlile R. Stevens and Dale E. Reamer, it was popularized by marketing maven, entrepreneur, and businessman Joseph Pedott. It took a visionary salesman like Pedott, who’s also famous for creating Chia Pets, to recognize that home automation wasn’t only about accessibility. Everyone wants cool gadgets and unique novelties that might make their lives just a little easier. So Pedott turned an accessible switch into a cultural icon, and took the first steps down the road to the mass-market for home automation that exists today.

GPS (1995)

“Reliable knowledge of your position is something that the government should provide as much as lighthouses for ships or navigation lights for planes. And here we are: now the whole world takes GPS for granted.”

-- Bradford Parkinson, chief architect of the GPS system

The first GPS satellite was launched by the United States Department of defence in 1978, and was originally intended for military purposes. But as with so many other technologies, people with disabilities would be the ones to find another use for GPS, changing the world by adapting it to their needs.

The idea that GPS could be used to help blind people better navigate the world would first be independently proposed in 1985 by both C.C. Collins and Jack M. Loomis. However, it wasn’t until 1995 that a GPS system allowing civilian access would be deployed fully enough to make the idea practical. The first GPS system for the blind was The UCSB Personal Guidance System (UCSB PGS), though the system remained a research prototype and was never commercialized. Shortly thereafter, Braille Note GPS became one of the first accessible GPS systems on the market. Within five years, GPS navigation would take the world by storm. Though, of course, with out other accessibility innovations like text to speech and the touch screen, in-car GPS could never have gone mainstream at all.

Online Shopping (1984)

“The only thing for sure is that there will be great change and the winners will be those who grab the board and ride the waves rather than wait to be washed away.”

-- Michael Aldrich

So who would be the first to put all this shiny new technology to use, and start building the modern world we live in today? Why, it was people with disabilities, of course. The availability of modems (thanks to the TTY), keyboards (thanks to the typewriter), and the ability to bring technology into the home, would finally allow for an entirely new and vastly more accessible way of doing business.

In 1984, Michael Aldrich introduced electronic shopping at Tesco to help people with disabilities who found in-store shopping difficult. The first online shopper? A 72-year-old named Jane Snowball from Gateshead, England. Using her TV remote and a Videotex system, she ordered margarine, cornflakes, and eggs. That might sound like your average grocery run today, but back then, it was revolutionary.

Since then, shopping online has become a part of daily life, and a convenience many of us rely on. As of 2023, online retail sales in North America reached approximately $1.17 trillion. But none of our modern reality would be possible without innovations stemming directly from accessibility, directly solving the needs of people with disabilities.

Conclusion

Technology is constantly in metamorphosis, and we’re in a time of more rapid change than ever before. Businesses are built on innovation, and can be destroyed if they miss the next big leap forward. But what’s coming next? Is it in-home robots? Virtual or augmented reality? Operating systems built entirely online?

If you really want to know, perhaps you should look to people with disabilities, who are finding new uses for your products every day, and coming up with entirely new technologies of empowerment. Whatever the next advance turns out to be, history teaches us that people with disabilities will be at the forefront.

Are there any stories you think I missed? Get in touch and tell me about them!

Sources

The Typewriter

  • Michael H. Adler: The Writing Machine, A History of the Typewriter. George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1973.
  • Giovanni Francesco Rambelli: Intorno invenzioni e scoperte italiane, Lettere di Gianfrancesco Rambelli a D. Domenico Maria Ferri. 1844.

Audiobooks

  • Rubery, Matthew: The untold story of the talking book. Harvard University Press, 2016
  • Grand View Research, Inc: Audiobooks Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Genre (Fiction & Non-Fiction), By Preferred Device, By Distribution Channel, By Target Audience (Kids Mode, Adult), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2024 –2030. Report ID: GVR-4-68038-588-5

The TTY

  • Lang, Harry G. A Phone of their Own: The Deaf Insurrection against Ma Bell. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2000.
  • Robert H. Weitbrecht and James C. Marsters TTY modem, RIT Deaf Studies Archive
  • SRI International. DEAFNET: A computer-based communications network accessed by either a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDDs) or standard computer terminals. The Dish: Dec 17, 2020.
  • MCMURTRIE, DAVE. The Commodore 8010 Acoustic Coupler modem: Commodore International Historical Society, Feb 14, 2023

Text To Speech

  • Jonathan Wood and Peter Benie: History of Professor Hawking's voice synthesizer. https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~peterb/hawking/history.html
  • Dennis H. Klatt: Review of text-to-speech conversion for English: The Journal of The Acoustical Society of America volume 82, 737-793. 1987.
  • From text to speech; The MITalk system: Jonathan Allen, M. Sharon Hunnicutt and Dennis Klatt (with Robert C. Armstrong and David Pisoni): Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.
  • Denis Klatt: The klattalk text-to-speech conversion system: IEEE International Conference. 1982

The Kurzweil Reading Machine

Autocorrect

  • Warren Teitelman, "Automated programmering: the programmer's assistant", in Proceedings of the FJCC, 1972
  • Warren Teitelman, "PILOT: A Step towards Man-Computer Symbiosis", M.I.T. Ph.D. Dissertation, Project MAC MAC-TR-32, September 1966.
  • Raymond , Eric S. “The New Hacker's Dictionary - 3rd Edition.” MIT Press, Oct. 1996. ISBN: 9780262181785
  • I AM NOT A TYPO

The Touch Screen

  • Westerman, Wayne: “Hand Tracking, Finger Identification, and Chordic Manipulation on a Multi-touch Surface”. University of Delaware, 1999
  • METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INTEGRATING MANUAL INPUT: US Patent 1498416167983280750-06323846
  • Buxton, Bill: “Multi-touch systems that I have known and loved”. Microsoft Research, 2007.
  • Buxton, Bill: “A MULTI-TOUCH THREE DIMENSIONAL TOUCH-SENSITIVE TABLET”. Computer Systems Research Institute, University of Toronto, 1985

The Clapper

  • The Cheesy Charm of the Clapper - IEEE Spectrum
  • Joseph Pedott, entrepreneur who sparked Chia Pet craze, dies at 91 - The Washington Post
  • Learn about the history of the Chia Pets trademark and make your own plant buddy – Lichtenberger Engineering Library
  • The Clapper: The Iconic Gadget That Defined a Generation-s1 – NewS Media

GPS

  • Collins, C.C. Electronic Spatial Sensing for the Blind. Springer; Dordrecht, The Netherlands: 1985.
  • Loomis, J.M. Digital Map and Navigation System for the Visually Impaired. Department of Psychology, University of California-Santa Barbara; 1985.
  • Real, S.; Araujo, A. Navigation Systems for the Blind and Visually Impaired: Past Work, Challenges, and Open Problems. Sensors 2019.
  • Loomis, J.M., Golledge, R.G., Klatzky, R.L., Marston, J.R. Applied Spatial Cognition: From Research to Cognitive Technology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.; Mahwah, NJ, USA: 2007.

Online Shopping

  • The digital transformation of online shopping - Michael Aldrich and the social good - BBC interview | The Brighton Business School Digital Transformation Research Group
  • Finding Mrs Snowball — Michael Aldrich Archive