Source: http://archive.regulationroom.org/air-travel-accessibility/final-summary/kiosks-accessibility-standards-3/
Timestamp: 2018-05-24 10:09:18
Document Index: 128474913

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2', '§3', '§4', '§5', '§7', '§8', '§9', '§10', '§11', '§12', '§13', '§14', '§15', '§16', '§2', '§4', '§10', '§14', '§15', '§16']

§2. Necessity/desirability of standards
§3. Other standards
§4. Specific aspects
§5. Auditory output; privacy
§7. Tactile symbols
§8. Touchscreens
§9. Timed response/timeouts
§10. Flashing lights
§11. Speech recognition
§12. Biometric input
§13. Contrast ratio
§14. Captioning; speech & visual outputs
§15. Physical standards
§16. Other problems
Twelve users described themselves as travelers. Of those twelve, one described her/himself as also being a disability advocate, three as relatives/friends of a traveler with disability, and one as a travel agency owner or staff. One user described her/himself as a relative/friend of a traveler with a disability, two as a site designers or programmers and usability experts (one of these two specified that were also a researcher in disabilities and universal design), and one as a being interested in the protection of the traveling public.
Four other people (including a friend/relative of a person with a disability who also has mobility and vision disabilities, a traveler, and a law student) who did not comment elsewhere endorsed comments.
§2. Necessity/desirability of kiosk accessibility standards
One commenter expressed uncertainty about whether “DOT and DOJ are the best people to propose such a standard.” A person who did not comment elsewhere endorsed this comment. Another commenter (travel agent who is blind) replied. S/he spoke from personal experience about the necessity of regulations for airport kiosks and websites due to a growing number of individuals who are blind, whether by birth, disease, accidents, or from being veterans. S/he is a member of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), which has had accessibility cases against airports dismissed because the “ADA doesn’t have any jurisdiction at the airports or the websites in this matter.” A person (traveler) who did not comment elsewhere endorsed this comment.
One commenter (travel agency owner or staff) spoke out against “revamping all the kiosks,” suggesting instead a “priority lane” where travelers with disabilities could get “personal assisted service.” (A similar comment from this commenter appears in the Kiosks: Costs & Benefits final summary.) A person (law student) who did not comment elsewhere endorsed this comment. The commenter (travel agent who is blind) responded that travelers with disabilities want “independence and not special treatment.” Another commenter (traveler and someone with a friend or relative who has a disability) agreed that “[s]egregating people with disabilities into a separate line is … stigmatizing,” and explained that people with disabilities are “normal people” who want “equal treatment” not “special treatment.”
One commenter (traveler) suggested that this was an example of “government trying to implement an inefficient and costly requirement.” S/he further predicted that the airlines will not absorb the cost of complying with this regulation and would pass it on to “everyone who travels.” Finally, this commenter found it “very difficult to believe” that there wasn’t an alternative with a “more reasonable” cost. The commenter (travel agent who is blind) disagreed, stating “if someone cannot use something that everyone else can, that is downright discrimination.” Another reiterated the importance of independence: “disabled people would benefit greatly from air travel accessibility kiosks in that in the growing age of computers, people would not be needed for their special assistance.” (This comment was made on the Website: Benefits and Costs post.)
Another commenter (traveler) suggested that there should not be “government regulations” on kiosk accessibility, because airline industry competition would “create similar accessibility standards” if they were cost efficient. (See the Kiosks: Costs and benefits final summary for a similar comment from another commenter.) This commenter also suggested that “there needs to be a cost-benefit analysis” to “determine if the benefit is really worth the cost;” s/he did not respond to the moderator’s question about whether s/he considered the cost analysis done by DOT adequate.
§4. Specific aspects of proposed standards
§10. Flashing lights speech recognition
The researcher in disabilities and universal design explained: “Some people cannot speak clearly enough or at all to use speech recognition systems. For example, a speech recognition system may be unable to understand the speech of a person who became deaf early in life. While speech recognition is not generally included as an option in today’s kiosks it is technology that is being used more widely in consumer electronics now, and a provision should be added to future-proof the legislation.” S/he suggested possible language for the final rule: “Usable without speech. At least one mode of operation for all functionality shall be provided that does not require user speech.”
Agreeing with these concerns, another commenter (traveler with mobility and speech disabilities) explained that s/he has epilepsy, so not only are “flashing lights out of the question,” but s/he “also cannot speak loudly or clearly enough due to an implant to control [his/her] seizures.” Therefore, speech recognition would be useless. A person (friend/relative of a person with a disability who also has mobility and vision disabilities) who did not comment elsewhere endorsed this comment.
§14. Captioning; coordinating speech and visual outputs
The researcher in disabilities and universal design also strongly supported coordinating visual and speech outputs: “It is very good that the provision requires that the speech output be coordinated with visual output for the [reasons given in the SNPRM]. It should also be noted that many people who are legally blind can see, and the visual display can be helpful for them even if the text is too small to be read. A headphone jack would be better than a handset because a person might not be able to use two hands (e.g., holding luggage or because of disability) to both control the device and hold the handset.”
§15. Physical standards: Height; clear floor space
§16. Other problems faced by travelers with disabilities
Finally, a commenter (traveler with a mobility disability who uses a wheel chair) wrote about a proposed benefit from kiosk accessibility, which belonged on the Kiosks: Benefits and Costs of Accessibility post. The commenter said, “[T]he more that I can manage my whole travel experience without a lot of interaction with staff, the more seamless my trip will be. At present, I try to do as much as possible online, but once at the airport I still need to negotiate red caps, security personnel, gate check-in personnel, luggage handlers and flight attendants, many of whom still do not have a clear idea of how to interact with people with disabilities. The kiosks will make little impact on this.” (This comment was made on the Website: Benefits and Costs post.)