Supporting people with disabilities through outreach and accessibility tools

Globally, there are approximately 285 million visually impaired people in the world—and each one of those people has networks of family and friends. Increasing the accessibility of products impacts not only the millions of people with disabilities, but also the lives of the people connected to them.

It’s because of the wide impact better accessibility tools can have that we partner with organizations like the Vision Serve Alliance, which brings together the CEOs of U.S. nonprofits that serve the blind and visually impaired to network and share best practices.

On Thursday, November 8 we welcomed 63 of these executives to Google’s San Francisco, Calif. office. There, we showed how we’re making Google’s products more accessible to blind and visually impaired users. We also shared insight into Google's culture—our commitment to openness, transparency and encouraging Googlers to bring their whole selves to work.

The attendees talked with representatives from the Google self-driving car team about the technology’s potential impact on mobility for the blind and visually impaired, as previously demoed by Steve Mahan from the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center. Other teams of Googlers also joined the event to demonstrate accessibility features in products like Chrome and Android. Chromevox is a screen reader that's built into Chrome OS and the Chrome browser. Android’s built-in accessibility features include text-to-speech, haptic feedback, gesture navigation, trackball and directional-pad navigation, all of which help visually impaired users navigate their mobile devices.



In line with our efforts to empower all people with disabilities, on December 3 we’re celebrating the International Day of Disability in Google offices in North America. We’ll have 7-minute flash talks about how Google’s work on accessibility empowers different communities, and a global product accessibility improvement day where Googlers test our products for accessibility bugs.

Posted by Seval Oz, New Business Development Senior Manager