Market Monitoring Report

The Access Board commissioned Inclusive Technologies to prepare a Market Monitoring Report -- a compendium of telecommunications products that address access issues, as well as concerns from consumers about existing access barriers. We are updating the Report with

new product types
new product models
new access solutions

If you're a telecom company, please submit any new product information to us for the Report's database.

You can also look at the Access Board's original version.

Here are some of the Report's findings:

Consumer Information

We received information from more than 1000 consumers about mainstream telecom products: what they can and can't use, what they like and don't like. Here are some results:

Consumers with disabilities are active telecom customers, using an average of 5.6 products
They buy these products where everyone else does: electronics chains, office supply stores, catalog houses, and phone stores
A large majority are satisfied with the products they use BUT
Almost everyone said there were products they'd like to use that were not accessible to them
Many people had interesting design ideas and suggestions for new features or entirely new products

Product Information

We evaluated more than 1200 products from over 70 manufacturers, of which more than 600 appear in the Report. We found consistent patterns of features that promote access in every type of product:

Volume control
Enlarged displays
High-contrast and illumination for improved visibility
Headset jacks
Hearing aid compatibility
Light weight
Speech technology -- just beginning to show up, speech synthesis and speech recognition offer access to people with many kinds of disabilities

There are more; most of them are universal design features that improve ease of use for everyone. Disability-specific features are rare so far, but companies are just beginning to gear up for compliance with new regulations.

Recommendations

The Report includes a set of recommendations to improve the way accessible telecommunications regulations work, to motivate companies, and to inform more consumers.