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Celebrating 34 Years of the ADA
This year, we are celebrating the 34th anniversary of the ADA – the Americans with Disabilities Act. This landmark ruling has impacted countless people and facets of our lives, including the technology we rely on day to day.
Accessible technology has a long history, in fact, that stretches back far before the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. Did you know that one of first typewriters was invented in the early 19thcentury by a man named Pellegrino Turri to help his blind friend write?
Today, let’s take a look at some of the most important milestones in accessible technology that have changed the technology landscape.
Timeline of Milestones in Accessible Tech
- 1808 – Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri invents a typewriter for his blind friend, Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano.
- 1886 – Herman Hollerith, a statistician with a cognitive processing disability, develops a punch card system for transporting data for the 1890 census. Hollerith went on to found the Tabulating Machine Company which later became IBM.
- 1913 – The first commercially manufactured electric hearing aids are produced.
- 1934 – The talking book is developed thanks to revolutions in sound recordings for the blind made by the American Foundation for the Blind.
- 1961 – The first text-to-speech system is created at Bell Labs by John Larry Kelly Jr.
- 1964 – Deaf scientist Robert Weitbrecht invents the first teletypewriter telephone (TTY) which sends and receives typed messages through telephones.
- 1986 – Jim Thatcher, researcher and accessibility pioneer at IBM, creates the first screen reader for users with visual impairments.
- 1990 – The Americans with Disabilities Act is passed into law.
- 1994 – Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, first mentions web accessibility for people with disabilities in his keynote speech at the Second International Conference on the World Wide Web.
- 1995 – Accessibility features are built into Windows Operating System for the first time.
- 1998 – Section 508 is amended to the Rehabilitation Act by U.S. Congress. The amendment requires federal agencies to make their information technology accessible to those with disabilities.
- 1999 – The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0, establishing the standards for making web content more accessible for those with disabilities.
- 2008 – WCAG 2.0 is published, consisting of twelve guidelines for web accessibility organized into four principles.
- 2011 – Web developer Joe Devon pitches the idea for a Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on his blog. Jennison Asuncion, an accessibility professional, sees Joe’s blog post and reaches out to organize the first GAAD event.
- 2012 – WCAG 2.0 becomes the standard set of guidelines for web accessibility accepted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
- 2013 – All domestic and foreign airlines are required to have accessible websites and kiosks under the Air Carrier Access Act.
- 2022 – The U.S. Department of Justice announces guidance for state and local governments and public businesses to make their websites accessible.
- 2024 – The Department of Justice’s final rule updating Title II of the ADA is published, which lays out guidelines for making state and local governments’ web content and apps accessible for people with disabilities. This rule uses WCAG 2.1, Level AA as the technical standard.
Accessible technology has a long and storied history, as you can see even from this short list! As people and organizations all over the world strive to make sure that technology is available to everyone, there are sure to be many more accessibility milestones to come.
The Americans with Disabilities Act would not exist without decades of work toward accessibility in all corners of the United States. Since it was enacted, it has improved the way that services, both physical and digital, are delivered to Americans with disabilities and helped to make our society more equitable for all. Happy anniversary to the ADA!
Resources
- https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/2005-06/accessibility/firstwave.html
- https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/
- https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
- https://hearingsystemsinc.com/the-history-of-hearing-aids/
- https://accessibility.day/about/
- https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/
- https://www.loc.gov/nls/who-we-are/history/
