The word, “Accessible”, has added significance to those of us who have disabilities. When we want to know if something is accessible, we want to know if there are barriers to entry that will prevent us from making use of it and if accommodations have been made to remove those barriers. Though awareness has increased significantly over the past few decades, due in part to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, there is still much work to be done and Christians ought to be leading the way.

I struggle with how to present this in a way that does not seem preachy, whiney, or demanding. I am keenly aware that I am one who would benefit from these efforts. I suppose the best way to address that issue is to freely admit that there’s at least some selfish motivation in my writing. I only ask that you try to look past that reality and see the truth in what I am presenting.

I am not of the opinion that anyone owes me anything. Law or no law, I have no right to demand from you something that you are not willing to give. To do so is only to use the law to take that which does not belong to me. It may be an indirect taking, as in forcing you to spend money on an accommodation that you would not otherwise provide and benefits a very small number of people. I would still consider that a theft of your resources, and I have no moral right to do that.

With that out of the way, I find it disturbing that one most often finds thee barriers to entry among organizations that one would expect to be most sensitive to the needs of others. In many cases, it’s just a matter of ignorance. In others, there are other factors that are worthy of consideration, such as the cost of the accommodation relative to the number of people who will benefit, and whether there are alternatives that will meet the objective. I am going to focus on technology here simply because it is the area with which I am most familiar, and in general provides the greatest opportunity for progress at minimal cost. I will illustrate the point with my own experiences over the past few years. I will avoid naming specific organizations because my intent is to raise awareness and not to defame good people doing good work who just need to be educated. The issues I cite are not unique to Christian or conservative outlets, but they stand out in these cases since they contribute to the charges of uncaring hypocrisy.

As you may already be aware, I rely on screen reading software to translate the content on my screen into spoken words because I cannot see well enough to identify it without assistance. As technology has advanced, this has become an increasingly complex task. In the early days, the software only needed to read back the text output as it appeared on the screen. As text based programs became more sophisticated, the software needed to be able to determine which elements should be spoken and which ignored in order to present information to the user efficiently. It became necessary to provide ways for the user to customize what is read back in ways that made sense for the particular application and according to his or her own preferences.

Then came the graphical user interface and a whole new set of problems. Now controls might be represented by graphics instead of text. Things might be anywhere on the screen, and one is expected to find and click them with a mouse. Pictures may be used to convey useful information, but how is a software program to determine what the picture is for and whether it contains such information? The creators of operating systems and screen readers worked together to resolve these problems. They were making progress, but then came the wild west of the world wide web. Almost instantly, anyone could create content for anything. Standards? What standards? Part of the beauty of the platform lies in the ability to be creative. Standards exist, but no one has to follow them unless compelled by law. This presents a challenge for screen reader makers and users. Computer programs work by performing predefined processes on predefined input. If the input doesn’t follow the rules, the program will not handle it correctly. That’s where we get the term, “garbage in, garbage out.” That’s a real problem if the garbage was supposed to be the information a blind user needs in order to use a web site or perform a job.

In the early days of web development, it might have been said that one had to sacrifice visual appeal to produce an accessible web site. Many developers chose to solve the problem by creating alternative web sites for screen reader users. This often resulted in what has been termed accessibility ghettos. The alternative sites often lacked features available to those using the primary site. It created extra work for the developers as they had to modify two sites instead of just one. Consequently, the alternative pages often fell into disrepair.

The good news is that this is no longer necessary. If accessibility is considered in all phases of development, it is not necessary to compromise the visual appeal of a web page, and it doe not add significantly to the development effort. Software tools now often provide the necessary elements for designing accessible pages.

Even so, we continue to see inaccessible web sites and smart phone apps everywhere. I was particularly disappointed a couple of years ago after the events of 2020 & 2021, when social media censorship became so aggressive that many of us began looking for alternatives. Not one of the options I tried was really usable. Some of them were technically accessible, but their design was such that navigating through them with a screen reader was cumbersome and not worth the effort. The apps were no better and often worse. I frequently encountered unlabeled graphical controls and elements that seemed to have no method of reaching them that didn’t involve clicking with a mouse or tapping directly on them, a problem when the screen reader doesn’t even know they are there. Granted, these upstarts may not be able to afford and accessibility team such as Facebook has and X (Twitter) used to have, but had they had considered accessibility from the ground up, such a group might never have been necessary. I find the same challenges when using alternative news sites, video sharing sites, and streaming services.

When I wrote the book, I used accessibility and our experience with it as an opening to introduce deeper concepts that I hope will bring peace and purpose to those who read it. I also hoped that it might bring me opportunity to advocate for accessibility among people who should be at the forefront of such efforts but have not taken up the challenge. In most cases I truly believe it’s a matter of education, and I want to play a part in changing that.