IMAGINE you are arriving late at night in Singapore. You check into one of the most modern hotels there but you are not able to get to your floor because you (being vision-impaired) can’t navigate the buttons on the lift and the lift doesn’t tell you which floor you’re on. So you go back to the reception desk to ask someone to take you up to your room.

It’s about 1am, and you are tired after your flight from Australia that was delayed. Before going to sleep, you want to set the alarm to wake you up later. You go over to the very modern phone next to your bed to find out it’s a touch screen and completely useless to you. It’s 1.30am by now. You take out your mobile phone, intending to ask your colleague to buzz you. But you don’t particularly want to do it as he is your boss and he would be sound asleep in his room. You then call reception on your Australian mobile phone, get someone to come up, orientate you about the room and then set up your wake-up call.

This tale told by Gerard Menses in his wry Australian tone caught the attention of everyone at Microsoft’s Accelerating Asia Pacific Summit at the software giant’s office in Singapore.

Menses, chief executive officer of Vision Australia in Melbourne, was relating the experience of his vision-impaired colleague Kenny Johar, who had come for the same conference.

In case you think this doesn’t concern you, think again. Most people with a disability aren’t born with it; instead it is closely connected to age.

Menses points out that most people are likely to acquire a disability between the ages of 35 and 54, whether through accident, illness or the onset of a hereditary condition.

There are an estimated 161 million people in the world who are blind or vision-impaired to a significant degree, he says.

And that number will double in the next decade through ageing. “There are potentially one billion people in the world who have a significant disability,” says Menses.

Vision is a dominant sense and critical to our understanding of the world, he says, adding that 17% of Australians have a print disability.

“They are not illiterate but have a condition – either through Parkinson’s or dsylexia – and are unable to read printed material or unable to navigate websites.”

They all translate into a huge potential market.

And yet, Menses says, less than 5% of print information is available in accessible formats to those who are blind, or have low vision or a print disability.

“Of websites around the world, it is less than 30%, even with the aid of assistive technology.”

Never mind computers, in Australia, only about 20% of automated teller machines are able to be used by this group.

“It’s like looking at life through a straw,” he says, holding up a straw and looking through it.

At the start of the summit, the participants were shown the exciting future of cloud computing. But if you’re vision-impaired, there may not be a silver lining in that cloud for you.

“That’s the paradox – the technology is actually creating a fantastic future but we’re moving much more to a visual technology that excludes people who are blind or have low vision,” says Menses.

People with vision impairment need specialised technology. But this technology is very expensive because it is seen to be delivering to a very limited market.

“An average screen reader for a Windows PC is US$1,400 (RM4,200). An average Braille display is US$4,000 (RM12,000); amazing costs, when technology is in fact becoming cheaper and cheaper,” says Menses.

“It takes at least three to five times the amount of time for an assistive technology user to access a computer screen than a sighted user. Why? Because most websites are not in accessible format.”

To change that, Menses says that Vision Australia is working closely with Microsoft through its i-access online programme.

Johar, who is the Architecture, Innovation and Accessible Solutions manager at Vision Australia, attests the Microsoft software he uses is perfectly accessible but acknowledges, “there is still a gap.”

Can someone with visual impairment access information that is printed on paper?

“Vision Australia’s i-access online service gives access to books, newspapers, magazines, podcasts and Braille music. I get downloads from my subscriptions. We have over 188 newspapers in Australia, 70 magazines and a raft of books.

“We have already written a software (i-access Downloader) with the cloud in mind and it is a web-based service,” says Johar, who developed retinitis pigmentosa (a degenerative eye disease) 10 years ago.

Forced to toss out his childhood dream of becoming a neurologist, he took up computer science and law.

Microsoft has had a very significant impact on his university, work and social life the last 10 years, he says.

Right now, Vision Australia delivers 33 magazines everyday and 100,000 books.

“A few years ago, we were doing eight million pages into alternate format, we’re now doing 35 million pages a year and that number is growing exponentially,” says Menses.

But with all that, they are still scratching the surface of information.

Hence Menses’ passion for the need to build the notion of universal design into every software application.

Noting the importance of inter-operability and openness as a condition of cloud computing, he says they hope that accessibility will increase as Microsoft builds on this notion of inter-operability and openness.

In the meantime, he says they are “terribly disappointed that the wonderful Microsoft phone is not accessible to people who are blind or have low vision.”

“This is an example of market forces driving several myths about universal design – we’ve got to get out there, act quickly, get to 80% of the population first.”

He points out it would take Microsoft another 18 months to backward build the phone and make it accessible to those who have low vision, adding that it would be an expensive process.

Similarly, he says it would be incredibly expensive to backward build ATMs in Australia to make them all accessible to the blind and people with low vision.

The reality is, if they had thought about that when they were initially designed, it would have been very simple and very cheap.

“There are seven principles to universal design but the key one is – keep it simple,” says Menses.

When contacted, Microsoft Malaysia’s spokesman says the company’s commitment to developing innovative accessibility solutions started when the corporation was in its infancy.

“It’s an ongoing process and we realise we need to continuously improve,” he says, adding they’re one of the few technology companies in the world to have appointed key senior executives whose only charter is to look into this issue.

For one, Chief Accessibility Officer Robert Sinclair manages the corporate accessibility strategy from within Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing division which focuses on integrity and responsibility in business practices.

“His team focuses on helping Microsoft and partner companies create technology that empowers individuals with disabilities and other difficulties,” said the spokesman.

He adds that throughout 2008, they had gathered government officials, industry leaders, and non-governmental organisation representatives across several European countries to explore how critical players in both public organisations and private industry can work together on solutions that create a more accessible World Wide Web.

The more exciting news for those who struggle with access is Microsoft’s recent appointment of author, activist and developer Wendy Chisholm as a senior strategist who will be working to make all web-related applications throughout the company accessible.

The spokesman says several of Microsoft’s latest products have new accessibility features like the flagship Office 2010 suite of productivity software which helps the user create accessible web portals with SharePoint Designer 2010, and lets the user hear text read aloud with Mini Translator.

In Malaysia, Microsoft has collaborated with the Malaysian Association of the Blind and St Nicholas Home in terms of software grants and providing the employees training in technology; it continues to work closely with the National Council for the Blind.

One of Microsoft’s initiatives is the Unlimited Potential – Community Technology Skills Programme that is designed to help narrow the technology skills gap and aid workforce development by providing technology skills training through community-based technology learning centres.

Computer literacy is a must in jobs these days and so governments around the world work with technology companies like Microsoft to come up with more inclusive policies and programmes.

However, unless they can work together to make universal design a priority and find a way to bring down the cost of technology, all the tax breaks and skills training in ICT will be worth little.