Mobile Devices as AT for people with vision impairments: Results of a study from Bangalore, India

1. Mobile Devices as AT for people with vision impairments: Results of a study from Bangalore, India Joyojeet Pal Seattle June 26, 2013

2. Art 4: Promote R&D of new tech at affordable cost • Art 9: Promote early stage design and prodn of accessible ICTs • Art 20: Facilitate access to mobiliy aids and AT • Art 21: Urge accessibility to private concerns online • Art 21: Reasonable accommodation at the workplace

3. What technology is at stake? • How to implement CRPD • Accessibility and technology is a broad area • 6 billion mobile phones in use • 2.3 billion Internet users • 1.4 billion TV sets • 1.2 billion Personal Computers • 2.2 million ATMs • 285 serious vision impairment (246/39) • Mobiles already play a critical role in making public sphere more accessible • Is the mobile going to become the primary AT device?

4. Mobile Sample • Argument: AT does reduce some structural disadvantages of social exclusion • Difficult sample to reach • How do narrative studies help? • 52 surveys, 15 in-depth interviews • 58 phones – only 1 non-Nokia • Sample highly skewed: • AT users more likely to be fairly well educated • Women more educated than men

5. Thematic Analysis

6. Preamble: Independence I just showed it to my friend, he is right now is a lawyer; so when I showed it to him he was totally dumbfounded. So what I mean to say there was no reaction at all means for a minute or so they were not able to speak a word because they could not believe their eyes. And then slowly questions started rising up. How to use the computer, how to use the cell and how do you understand things. The reaction was very thrilling. R 49, India Very low awareness of AT in public sphere, particularly workplace

7. Independence When I lost sight I did not know that screen readers existed. It was 10 long years when I came to know about the screen reader software…Though I was staying in a well-developed area i.e. defence area in Bangalore and I was surrounded by highly educated people, but even then, I remained at home for 10 years without knowing that I could be independent. But I feel even now the situation is the same; whenever people see me carrying a laptop or working on the computers, they ask what is that I am doing with a computer when I can’t see. R 60, India Low awareness particularly damaging to people with late-life disability acquisition

8. Technology Choices: Gender • Women pay more than men for phones • 121.59 / 169.20 * • Women use an instrument longer • 28.32 / 21.12 * • Women stay with plans longer than men Why? • Men much more likely to buy used phones • Men much more likely to purchase through acquiantance (* Significant at 95%)

9. Device Attachment “I prefer to buy first hand rather than second hand. If at all I am getting an older product for half the rate, then definitely I am taking double the risk. So should I really take the risk?” R3 Cell phone vital to sense of public space safety and for women with disabilities

10. Device Attachment: Multipurpose “When I am using a mobile phone, someone commented that ‘why are you using such a costly mobile phone? It may get stolen, … if you need a phone, you can get one for just for a thousand rupees; why spend so much on a phone” then I replied him that I am using the phone not only as a phone but also using GPS navigation; scanner & reader, etc. So if you can give me a phone with all these technologies for one thousand rupees, I will gladly take it and use it.” R14 Mobile rapidly replacing multipurpose, but primary experimenters are desktop hi-perf users • Music (71%), Bluetooth (61%), Voice Recorders (19%), GPS (15%) • Replacement of recorders such as Angel etc.

11. Device management • Strongest indicator of piracy is new/used (2.5x) • Pirated software phones more likely to fail, (easier to fix) • relationship to phone, not software • NGOs and Mobile software piracy • Bundling – point made earlier by Dr. Khasnabis

12. Device Management / piracy “Usually for middle-income people like us, if it costs 1500-200, definitely we will afford. Same software, if it costs 5000 or 6000, we think that with this money we can buy a new handset itself… Durability, the life of a Nokia phone is really very long. It won’t undergo repairs…It is not delicate like Samsung or Apple.” R9 Replacement price marker for willingness to pay for software

13. Socializing / Independence “Parents are not ready to take that extra risk and they feel when it is a girl child, what is the use in educating her?... Girls have more aspirations than boys; it is because girls would have really taken a lot of difficult steps to come out. They have to convince their parents, they have to find a suitable place to live and work, they know the value of the difficulties they have taken” R6 Women stress importance of phone as a reassurance of independence and economic viability to family-members • Very high increase of social circles, particularly females • A third use social media on phone • Essential part of job search

14. Social dependence “So already I have taken that pain of asking somebody to load it on my instrument if I have a pirated one and again when I get the original I have to approach someone to remove the already present software and reload a new one. It’s such a pain, but I feel very happy about the products which come bundled” Most phone management requires informal help from household member, increasing reliance on social media (C-series necessitate formal visit to sales center) Social media increases reduction in dependence on direct social network

15. What is ahead? • Completed in Rwanda, Ongoing in Sierra Leone, Costa Rica, S Korea, Malawi, India this summer • Create narratives of AT and social inclusion • Ethnography of AT use and workplace • How do we look at gender, technological determinism? • Examine intersectionality / marginality • How does the mobile reshape the sense of identity, power? • What does ubiquity of mobile do to those excluded further? • Mobile device as desktop replacement • Technical issues around local language material

16. Thanksjoyojeet@umich.edu