White paper calls for more accessible appliances for the visually challenged

The white paper outlines practical ways for organisations to improve accessibility of products for persons with disabilities.

MUMBAI: A septuagenarian inadvertently touches a washing machine, activating the child lock on it. The disruption in its function makes her overly anxious, leading to an asthma attack. In another case, a visually impaired man accidentally changes the programme on a touch-screen washing machine. When the machine keeps running beyond the scheduled washing cycle, he has to seek his neighbour’s intervention. Yet another blind person is locked out of his house because of the inaccessibility of the Smart Lock app.

White paper calls for more accessible appliances for the visually challenged

These examples were cited in a white paper released on Wednesday, a day ahead of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, to demonstrate the daily challenges faced by the visually challenged in the age of appliances that have increasingly moved to touch-enabled interfaces, leading in many cases to the exclusion of the disabled and the elderly.

The white paper, titled Built to Include: Expanding the reach of consumer products through accessibility and released by the Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC), outlines practical ways for organisations to improve accessibility to white and brown goods—refrigerators, microwaves, washing machines and televisions—through inclusive product design, accessibility training, and co-creation of products with persons with disabilities.

“As the technology of consumer goods evolves, it is critical that accessibility becomes a part of how products are developed so that they do not unintentionally exclude sections of society,” said Dr Sam Taraporevala, executive director, XRCVC. With the release of the white paper, he added, they hoped to encourage manufacturers to proactively build accessibility into mainstream products, creating more inclusive solutions.

For instance, the absence of tactile markings in coffee-vending machines has led to blind people burning their fingers; similarly, they are unable to access the benefits of smart doorbells bereft of these markings. The white paper points out that the blind often prefer appliances with push buttons for greater haptic feedback. “The same, if built into a touch-screen interface with beeps or voice-enabled outputs, could reach a larger audience,” says the paper.

XRCVC, recipient of the national award for inclusive education in 2024, states in the paper that 2.2% of India’s population is disabled as per the National Sample Survey Organisation’s 2018 data. The centre, which is an accessibility training partner for the Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy and the Election Commission of India, concludes its paper by pointing out that accessibility is most effective and economically sustainable when integrated from the early stages of product development.