Month: July 2026

Mobile Access and Accessibility

Immediate Access vs. Building Future Accessibility

Watson’s 2023 article “Libraries on Call: Smartphone lending program bridges technology gaps” is a great example of providing immediate material access which improves people’s lives. However there is another side I don’t want us to lose sight of.

Immediate Access

This approach:

  • is often technology-based,
  • uses individual devices to bridge access gaps,
  • has a cost per device and per person served,
  • often puts the onus on the individual or community organizations to bridge the gap,
  • is often not scalable,
  • circumvents barriers but does not remove them, and
  • may create temporary access and dependency on the short-term solution.

Examples may include: translation devices/apps, recording devices and voice-to-text, and my favorite example of this phenomenon: specialized powered wheelchairs that can climb steps.

Future Accessibility

This approach:

  • is often infrastructure based;
  • looks at long-term and universal access;
  • incurs a large but often one-time cost;
  • may face a lot of push-back due to the scale of change needed;
  • does not ask individuals and communities that are facing barriers to dissolve or overcome the barriers themselves; and
  • results in spaces that are inherently more accessible and therefore require no additional resources to access.

Examples may include: retrofitting buildings, building new structures, redesigning processes, and just creating new systems from the ground up.

Providing immediate access to some while building more universal and permanent access is important and necessary. Building permanent access may even grow out of some of those temporary solutions into long-term solutions. What’s important here is that effort is being made to provide both immediate and permanent access.

Understanding and Transferable Skills for Future Access

Mobile devices and user interfaces in particular (including mobile apps) tend to have a much lower barrier to entry in terms of both cost and computing know-how. They are highly-accessible devices for people from a variety of backgrounds, ages, education levels, and ability. However, the other side of this coin is that they also tend to obscure and make harder to see or understand the basics of computing.

We have seen that younger generations who have grown up using cloud storage and mobile apps do not have basic understanding of file structures and directories. They rely on search. And with generative “AI” now entering the scene, this is getting only worse.

While these mobile devices being accessible is great for the short-term and can help connect people to information and resources quickly, the devices themselves do not help users build skills around computing, accessing information, or other digital skills that could be useful to them in their lives. As long as these devices and the software they carry hide the complexity behind a simple UI, users will have to learn another way. But will they choose to when the easier option is within reach?

Photo by Kajetan Sumila on Unsplash

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