Disability tech

→ Accessibility of disability tech remains an issue. With hardware makers unable to benefit from economies of scale in niche markets, their products can be prohibitively expensive.

→ On the other end of the spectrum, many software companies charge companies to make their services accessible, rather than consumers themselves.

→ Disability tech too often reflects biases about race and gender, from soap dispensers not recognising certain skin shades to automated captioning struggling with accents.

→ At the same time, disability covers such a broad spectrum of conditions that what helps one group may not be useful for another, cautioning against any quick fixes or one-size-fits-all solutions.

→ Even within disability tech, companies often fail to integrate their target groups into product development from the outset.

→ This may lead to products being launched that attempt to make disabled people conform to their surroundings rather than the other way around — or simply tackle problems that don’t exist.

→ Much of disability tech faces hidden barriers to uptake. For hardware, these may relate to maintenance and customisation of products, hampered by the availability of specialist care and intellectual property protections.

→ Beyond that, specialised products may require training and have to be employed in supportive settings — meaning their success is a matter of culture as much as the tech itself.