Inclusive innovation: unlocking the potential of tech for accessibility
The Royal Society have published a new report exploring the potential of digital assistive technology to support independent, fulfilled lives for people with disabilities.
techUK has long been committed to driving inclusion and ensuring the benefits of a tech-enabled world can be realised by all. Digital inclusion is not just about equipping people with the skills and support they need to use technology effectively, it is also about using and developing technology to create a more inclusive society.
In the UK, there are 16 million people with disabilities. The impact of disability can impact all aspects of disabled people’s lives from accessing services to education and employment. According to Scope, these individuals are over 50% more likely to face digital access barriers than non-disabled people. The discussion on technology, therefore, has two key dimensions: how we can deploy assistive technologies to tackle accessibility challenges in society, and how we can design technology in a way that does not pose its own accessibility challenges.
In their recent report titled Disability Technology: how data and digital assistive technologies can support independent, fulfilled lives, The Royal Society explore the landscape for digital assistive technologies and highlight the ways in which such technology can begin to tackle barriers to access and inclusion for people with disabilities.
The report highlights several critical considerations for the future of digital assistive technologies and their potential to foster a more inclusive society:
- Rethinking data and measurement: Current ways of measuring disability, such as self-reports or broad health indicators, can be overly simplistic. These approaches risk misrepresenting disabled people’s experiences and may reinforce outdated medical models of disability, rather than focusing on the societal barriers they face. Better, more nuanced data is essential for effective policy and inclusive research.
- Assistive technology enables independence: Digital assistive technologies are vital for many disabled people’s daily lives. Over half of surveyed users reported they could not live as they do without them. There’s also broad public support for using such technologies to support independence, especially as people age.
- Inclusive design is essential: Co-designing technologies with disabled people leads to better, more accessible outcomes. This includes involving users at all stages, from concept to feedback, ensuring design tools and environments are accessible, and building sustainability into products.
- The limits of big data: Disabled people are often underrepresented in large datasets, which can bias the development of technologies. Emerging ‘small data’ approaches, using personalised or contextual data, may offer more accurate insights but need further development to be effectively integrated into assistive technologies.
- Inclusive tech benefits everyone: Features originally designed for accessibility, like captions, screen readers, and voice controls, often improve experiences for all users. This broader utility strengthens the case for investing in inclusive technology beyond just disability prevalence.
- Skills and awareness gaps must be addressed: Widespread adoption of digital assistive technologies depends on both awareness and digital skills. Training for users, carers, and professionals is key to enabling effective use across work, home, and leisure settings.
- Ethics and societal implications matter: The design and deployment of digital assistive technologies raise important ethical issues, including privacy, bias, informed consent, and equitable access. Tackling these concerns transparently is essential to building trust and ensuring widespread adoption.
The report includes case studies evidencing the opportunities and challenges of using assistive technology across different contexts including work, gaming, travel and tourism, playing and composing music, and social care and independent living.
Digital assistive technologies and work
Opportunities:
- Remote and flexible work boosts inclusion: remote work supports productivity, health and autonomy for disabled workers, with 70% reporting that losing remote work access would negatively impact their health. Flexibility is especially beneficial for people with mobility impairments or fluctuating conditions.
- Accessible video communication tools: platforms like Microsoft Teams offer features like muting controls and visual-audio management that support neurodivergent users and improve the accessibility of virtual settings.
- Mainstream devices as multifunctional assistive tools: Smartphones and screen readers are widely used by blind and low vision workers. Mainstream technology can reduce costs, maintenance needs and device fatigue compared to specialised tools, making it more practical, especially in low-resource environments.
- Live transcription enhances meeting accessibility: Real-time captions and transcription tools make meetings more inclusive.
- AI-powered job search tools: Chatbots and AI-powered solutions can enable more accessible job searching through text or voice interfaces, helping disabled users navigate platforms more easily.
Challenges:
- Affordability and access gaps: Many disabled workers pay out of pocket for assistive technologies, and are nearly three times more likely to lack home internet or a computer.
- Remote work isn’t a silver bullet: While beneficial, remote work can increase social isolation for some disabled people, and it is not a substitute for improving physical workplace accessibility.
- Limited access to remote-friendly jobs: Disabled workers are underrepresented in professional, office-based roles where remote work is common, and 20% of disabled workers requesting remote work adjustments have been refused.
- More to do on mainstream tech: Common technology tools at work may lack compatibility with screen readers or have inaccessible interfaces, hindering accessibility.
- Awareness and training deficits: Disabled employees may need more support and training to discover and use assistive technologies, while colleagues and managers often lack disability awareness and inclusive tech training.
To tackle the issues they identify, The Royal Society make a number of recommendations, including:
- National statistics bodies should shift toward collecting data on functional challenges and limitations across populations, rather than solely focusing on disability identity.
- Governments should consider the smartphone as an assistive technology.
- People with disabilities should be meaningfully involved in the design and development of new digital products and services from the outset.
- Governments, technology companies and research funders should explore initiatives to promote low-cost, interoperable and sustainable digital assistive technologies.
- Service providers should consider the social impact of replacing analogue services with digital alternatives.
- Governments should ensure disabled people and carers, of all ages, are equipped with the skills required to most effectively utilise current and future assistive technologies.
This is a timely report. As the government takes forward its Digital Inclusion Action Plan, and take steps to digitalise ever more public services, it must give due consideration to accessibility challenges – equipping people to understand and use assistive technologies, and taking care to design and deploy technology in a way that supports people with disabilities to live independent and fulfilling lives.
You can read the full report from The Royal Society here.
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Authors
Jake Wall
Policy Manager, Skills and Future of Work, techUK
Jake has been the Policy Manager for Skills and Future of Work since May 2022, supporting techUK's work to empower the UK to skill, attract and retain the brightest global talent, and prepare for the digital transformations of the future workplace.
Previously, Jake was the Programme Assistant for Policy. He joined techUK in March 2019 and has also worked across the EU Exit, International Trade, and Cloud, Data Analytics and AI programmes.
He also holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Sussex, as well as a BA(Hons) in International Politics from Aberystwyth University. During his time at Aberystwyth University, he won the International Politics Dissertation Prize.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- www.linkedin.com/jwwuk
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