If this sounds too soft or impractical for computer scientists, one might cite the advisability of consulting architects on designing for accessibility. Architects are quite professionally aware of the implications of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For example, recently the Post Office was about to let a multimillion dollar contract for 10,000 networked kiosks and software. When asked by an architectural school if accessibility had been taken into account, the program officer said that a human factors Ph.D. had reviewed the specifications. He, however, did not know if this Ph.D. had any background in disability work and was surprised to learn that multimedia posed special problems for people with sensory disabilities.
Architects deal with the relationship of people to their environment.
What architects do is structure this relationship. As people come to live in increasingly electronic environments architecture becomes de facto electronic. But it is another matter altogether as to whether architects will design the electronic edifices of the World Wide Web. In the nineteenth century railroads came to dominate the business of transporting large numbers of people between cities, but in the twentieth century railroad magnates did not evolve into airline executives. Though the function of both industries was to move people, the physical differences made this seemingly natural evolution inconceivable.