Virginia Jacko has been working in accessibility and advocacy for a long time. She’s been the president and CEO of the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired since 2005. She says the organization has grown from around 500 to 21,000 program participants during her tenure. For her, digital accessibility means revealing barriers that may not be there for others in the wider disability community.
“I like to say that today most business is done through some form of digital technology. And accessible digital technology is, in essence, the ramp that people in a wheelchair have had for a long time, but people with a vision disability often do not have because it is not as obvious.”
But Jacko’s involvement doesn’t just stem from the many programs the Lighthouse offers. She played an instrumental role in discussing accessibility with the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, which she says took educating the candidates on how much inaccessible information affects the voting public.
“In my email, it was, ‘Are you aware that there are 30 million seniors that have some uncorrectable loss of vision and you do not have, on your website, a widget whereby those individuals that want to know about your policies can either change the font size or the color contrast?’ And that was an attention-getter because that widened the net and the scope of the people that probably were missing out on information on the candidates’ website.”
Jacko says that she doesn’t believe these inaccessible design decisions were necessarily malicious. She points to tech entrepreneur turned political candidate Andrew Yang as one of the politicians to show the most interest, but that the inaccessibility of voting is a symptom of a wider issue.
“One [candidate] was Bernie Sanders, who comes to my mind, I'm certain he did not even know about what it meant to have digital equity, digital inclusion, but when I realized that not a single one could brag… ultimately, nearly every one of those candidates, we worked with.”
Outside of the political sphere, Jacko says that one of the Lighthouse’s main focuses when it comes to digital accessibility is its job training programs. She says their work involves educating employers in all industries about employees’ access needs. The common thread, in her opinion, is that few even try to explain training procedures without relying on visuals.
“That [lack of detail] is absolutely meaningless to a visually impaired person. And they need to say, ‘On the screen, we have three boxes. And if you arrow down to the second box, and if you click enter, then you will be able to access whatever that screen might be displaying.’”
One frustration Jacko says she has with corporate America is that business leaders have a limited view of what inclusion and accessibility can and should look like.
“Right now, they're all interested in DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion]. And when I call, for example, the HR manager, a typical is, ‘Oh, we are committed to hiring people with disabilities.’ And I say, ‘Oh, that's wonderful. Now, could we talk about having graduates from our vocational rehabilitation training program? Have you hired any people that are visually impaired?’”
The response? Usually silence.
It’s not as if there’s a lack of disabled people looking for support. Miami Lighthouse offers programs that include mobile eye-care clinics, a partnership with Miami-Dade Public Schools, a school for young learners called the Miami Lighthouse Academy, and a music program. Jacko estimates the organization supports around 90,000 people a year, including those who are not direct participants in its programs.
Regardless, sometimes inaccessibility in the workplace boils down to proprietary technology that can’t be used with tools like screen readers, sometimes it’s due to organizational resistance to change, and sometimes it’s faulty assumptions about what a disabled staff member can or can’t do. Whatever the cause, Jacko says she intends to continue to work towards sustainable solutions.
“I really believe companies want to hire [disabled] people as part of their DEI commitment, but they often do not know what some of the barriers are for people with a vision disability. And that is our goal, to break down those barriers and have equity and employment.”