Tech large Amazon has printed new analysis to extend consciousness round World Accessibility Day 2022. The survey, carried out by YouGov in April and Might of this 12 months, requested 1,084 UK adults with a bodily or sensory incapacity about their relationship with technology.
A number of the outcomes are unsurprising, like the truth that 77% of respondents mentioned they use tech units to assist them with duties resembling answering the door and controlling their lights.
In any case, a rising variety of households depend on smart home and different tech units to assist run their lives. A
Statista World Shopper survey carried out within the UK discovered related ranges of use throughout all surveyed UK households, with solely 17% of respondents saying that they had no smart home units in any respect.
However whereas the Statista figures cowl all forms of use, with 77% of households saying they used smart home technology for leisure, the YouGov survey focuses on the assistance that dwelling technology can present. Respondents mentioned that, on common, they used smart home tech and different units 13 occasions a day to assist them carry out duties that might in any other case be tough to do.
And the consumer base is rising. The variety of folks with a mobility impairment who use
sensible audio system to manage family home equipment has doubled in 5 years, whereas 4 occasions as most of the identical folks use a
sensible doorbell to reply the door.
Over a 3rd of disabled folks surveyed (36%) mentioned that using sensible safety units has made them really feel safer.
Tech has impacted disabled folks’s working lives as nicely, with just below a 3rd (31%) saying that new technology has made their work simpler or a lot simpler, whereas 20% mentioned that technology has helped to enhance equality with colleagues at work.
However whereas these numbers are encouraging, only one% of respondents mentioned they felt that accessibility was a key consideration when units are developed. And nearly half of the folks surveyed (48%) mentioned they confronted challenges in utilizing new technology that others may not.
The figures spotlight the truth that extra work must be completed to make technology accessible to all. Throughout a digital roundtable hosted by Amazon to debate the survey findings, Dr Amit Patel, incapacity rights campaigner, mentioned: “Expertise is usually a lifeline, however corporations have to focus extra consideration on the wants of people that depend on it most.”
To search out out extra about Amazon’s accessibility options, go to the
Alexa Accessibility Hub. Or learn extra about
World Accessibility Consciousness Day.
