Interview with Robin Christopherson

Robin Christopherson was born in Durham in 1970. He says of his childhood: “I’ve enjoyed every single day of my life. We were rather an unconventional family, because both my parents were blind.  My dad had glaucoma, my mum had a condition that’s unique to our family, so we’ve been lab mice at Moorfields Eye Hospital, a world-leading eye hospital in London.  We went there several times a year at the beginning, and once a year until we were in our late teens, for them to ponder what they could do to help and perhaps allow us to retain some vision. My mum’s got no vision at all as a result of this condition.  My two sisters are blind as well. My sister’s son has also got the condition.  It’s looking like our two grown-up children haven’t, which is nice.  But, it was absolutely no barrier to happiness, or a functional family.  We were a rub along sort of family; everybody had a vision impairment, but we just got on with it, and thank goodness for technology.”

Robin’s father was a land registrar and his grandfather had been Vice-Chancellor of Durham University.  Asked if there were high levels of expectation, Robin says: “If there was, then I didn’t feel it.  Our family is very accepting, and we were able to choose whatever path we wanted.  Vision impairment wasn’t seen as the end of the world like it might be if people aren’t surrounded by people getting on quite well.

“Growing up in Durham, we lived in a big Victorian terrace. Dad was out at work every day, and Mum, even though she couldn’t see, was bringing up three small children, and running a student hostel at the same time.  Both parents were an inspiration, but my mother probably more so.  She didn’t have as much vision as Dad; even though he was registered blind, he could still read with a magnifier and could function to get around the house visually. They were amazing as role models for us, showing us to just get on with it.”

Robin explains the definition of registered blind, adding: “It doesn’t mean that you’ve got absolutely no vision.  It can mean anything from no central vision, so that you can’t actually see any details but you have got some mobility, to only central vision, where everything might be completely black but just this tiny little tunnel vision in the middle. I remember somebody saying to me once that she had to give up reading books on the bus to work every day with her guide dog because she had this little tiny central vision, which is what you need for reading, but it was absolutely no good for mobility.  … There’s lots of complications when it comes to disability and that’s why AbilityNet exists; it’s a pan-disability organisation, and technology is incredibly empowering to help people across those different areas of need.”

Robin was inspired by his physic teachers at school, adding: “I’ve always been interested in science.  I still listen to loads of science radio programmes and podcasts etc.  I can’t get enough of science. Technology is definitely in that category as well.”

He also highlights Professor Stephen Hawking as a further inspiration, adding: “He was inspiring because there’s somebody with a very significant impairment and he was able to provide huge insights into the scientific world or domain. I remember growing up thinking how amazing he was. He only had the ability to nudge a switch with his head, and from that, in a very pedestrian way, he was able to interact with a screen using technology, the onscreen keyboard, and various phrases.  It’s called an AAC, an augmentative and alternative communication device, it allows you to build up sentences more quickly, from a bank of stock phrases, or from rows and columns of an onscreen key board.”

Robin made adjustments through his education to compensate as his vision gradually reduced until his mid-twenties when had no vision left. He says: “It was a very easy to adjust, you just had to get closer and closer to the front of the class, for example. The state schools that I went to were absolutely brilliant.  These days, I am sure that there are many more special needs centres and teams within secondary schools, but in those days there wasn’t anything like that.  Luckily for me, just getting closer and closer to the front of the class, and putting my hand up if I couldn’t see something, meant that I muddled through.”

Having done double maths and physics at A level, Robin chose to study engineering at Cambridge University, which he says was probably the wrong course for him with his sight deteriorating.  He adds: “I had the history of engineering in our family.  My grandfather was Sir Derman, an engineering fellow before he became vice-chancellor, so I thought I’ll go for that and if I have to retrain later then fine; as opposed to not going for what you want and then always wondering whether you should have.

“It was challenging because I couldn’t see the lecture, there weren’t slides in those day, they were blackboards, or overhead projectors, and the lecturers were reluctant to give me their notes, which is what I would have been able to read from, so that was a real challenge. I did have a talking laptop.  It was DOS in those days, and it had a built-in hardware speech synthesiser. It was really heavy, but it did the job, and I was able to write notes.”

After completing his degree, Robin remained at Cambridge to gain a PGCE.

Asked about his first computer and when he first realised the potential of computer technology to be assistive technology, Robin says that he started out touch typing on a manual typewriter.

He adds: “Touch-typing skills, particularly if you’re going to lose your vision, was really important.  … It was only when I went to university that I had a talking laptop that had speech output which was called JAWS, standing for Job Access with Speech, JAWS for DOS.  That was my first encounter with technology that can help people with disabilities.

“When I went to the RNIB, they had a range of technologies. Windows 3.11 was the first version of Windows that had accessibility built in. … That was when we were able to start getting them to talk, and third parties that created software, like magnification software, to blow up the screen so that you could see it more easily if you had low vision.”

Robin explains some of the many gadgets that help people with poor vision in their daily lives, such as liquid level indicators, etc, adding: “These days there are a million specialist gadgets and gizmos, but there’s also a million apps that can leverage a lot of the smarts that are in your phone, so, it’s a very different kind of world today.  For me, in those early days, technology was around getting access to the desktop, the advent of the Internet in the late Nineties, what’s this going to mean for us and so on.”

He highlights that time has passed, technology has got smarter and more prolific and that accessibility has remained a priority. He says: “The big players, Apple, Microsoft, Google, very much prioritise accessibility, and have been very visible.  Today, it’s a very active community, thankfully, which is great because it’s a digital first world now; just imagine leaving millions of people behind.

“It’s not to say there isn’t a lot of inaccessible websites, and apps out there for people with a range of impairments, there certainly are, and that’s why we have to carry on raising awareness, and making sure that the Government prioritise that.  So, it’s a mixed bag, but all the tools are there.  What everyone’s using these days is incredibly powerful and that power can be leveraged to great effect for people with disabilities too.”

After completing his Master’s, Robin completed a year of service as is traditional for a member of the Baha’i religion. He says: “I decided to do six months in Russia, going around different towns and cities in Russia teaching English as a second language. They were so receptive, they were so amazing.  … Then I spent six months in Honduras, over the summer, helping out in a hospital in the rain forest on the mosquito coast, which is really dense jungle. That was a real eye-opener as well.”

Upon his return to the UK and with his vision deteriorating, Robin gained a place at the residential rehabilitation centre at the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). He adds: “At that point I really had very little vision left and I realised that I was going to need to get some mobility skills as I can’t really get about without help.  Luckily enough, this place was available.  It was a thirteen-week residential placement for a visually impaired person to learn the ropes of mobility, to learn some IT skills, and daily living skills.”

At the end of the thirteenth week, Robin was invited to take a role with the RNIB as an IT instructor which he did for a further eighteen months. He says: “That eighteen months as an IT instructor was enough to get me the job, in 1996, as an assessor of IT, or assistive technology for people with disabilities, with a charity called the Computability Centre, which was a precursor to AbilityNet.”

The Computability Centre was a charity set up by IBM to deal with all areas of assistive technology.  Robin explains what they did: “There was a freephone number where people who had disabilities or had family members that did, could call to talk about what technology could help them, or how they could adjust the technology that they’ve already got. We also went out into people’s homes and did assessments.”

In 1998, the Computability Centre joined forces with the Foundation for Communications for the Disabled (FCD) based in Worcester, and formed AbilityNet.

AbilityNet now has locations all over the country. Robin has been with the charity since the start and is one of the co-founders. He says: “We deliver a huge range of services and it’s really grown with the growth of the importance of technology and digital.

“We’re very much needed in helping people to get the most out of the technology they’ve got, or to see how we could augment what they’ve already got to really help them perform at their best, whether that’s at home, in education, going into work, staying in work, in retirement, etc.”

Never having had any government funding, the charity provides commercial services and uses the income to deliver free services to disabled individuals. The commercial services include work place assessments, accessibility assessments and acting as a provider of the disable students’ assessment.

Robin adds: “We’ve got a range of paid-for services that as a charity provide a surplus for us, and those surpluses are ploughed straight back into our free services. Working for an organisation like that is an amazing feeling. Technology’s great, but when you’re applying it to something that makes a real difference in people’s lives, that’s a real gift.”

In the first few years of his career with AbilityNet, Robin was focused on the end user. With the launch of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 2003, Robin began talking to companies about accessibility as a legal requirement.

He explains: “I went to see our first client, a company in London, and they were happy to pay for us to help sort out their website.  From that point on, the accessibility team was born.  We work with companies to make sure that their apps, website and all their digital materials are fully inclusive.  That’s been the main growth in what AbilityNet delivered, there’s something like 30 full-time consultants now delivering those services.  Obviously we’re only scratching the surface when it comes to the number of organisations out there that have online websites and apps and that sort of thing.”

The charity works with people who have a wide range of needs, Robin says: “That’s the real power of AbilityNet as a one-stop shop, because, otherwise you might find yourself going to different organisations, getting potentially conflicting advice.  We are very aware that it’s a really important gap to fill; a pan-diversity, pan-disability organisation, and that includes, mental health, anxiety, ASD, autism spectrum disorders, etc, so it’s a really, really broad picture now.

“We provide a lot of information and training courses, webinars et cetera, about a diverse workforce and how to cater for everyone, or how to put on inclusive online or hybrid meetings, that sort of thing.”

On the impact of COVID, Robin says: “It was a real double-edged sword for many employees, but particularly for those with disabilities, because they got a lot of the flexibility that they wanted, but for many of them it also came with accompanying challenges of isolation.

“From a digital first point of view, digital became all-important all of a sudden, and we saw that in the level of interest in our services. It’s important because it’s really going to leave people wide open if they’re not able to cater for customers who now rely one hundred per cent on digital, for example, to get their groceries delivered. There are some real world impacts here if people are dealing with inaccessible online services. … So it really did focus the importance of digital inclusion, and we saw that reflected in the number of demands or calls for our services etc.”

Of the next five to ten years, Robin says: “Technology and how it can assist people with a range of different impairments is a really fast-moving area at the moment.  Each new version of an operating system, or iteration of a smartphone, brings new built-in capabilities. For example, sensors such as LIDAR. During COVID, many devices had built-in person detection using the LIDAR for social distancing, it would tell you exactly where people were – for example, there’s a person at three metres at eleven o’clock, and it would start beeping.  You could set the parameter so that you could avoid people and keep the social distance.  Something as simple as being in a queue in a shop and knowing when to move, when the person in front’s taken a step ahead, if you can’t see, you have to ask ‘can you tell me when you move forward?’, but with this, it would tell you exactly when they had moved, and it would allow you to keep that distancing.

“So, there’s been loads of advancements.  AI obviously is at the heart of many of them.  There’s an app on my phone called Seeing AI, from Microsoft, and it uses all of those different sensors to tell me what’s around me, help me find objects.  It can read text either quick snapshots of road signs, or buildings as you’re passing by, or, whole documents.  It can read the colour of what your clothing is so you know if you’ve got the right coloured shirt on.  It can read banknotes, so it can tell you what denomination you are about to hand over etc.

“So, in the next five years, I definitely see AI being at the heart of further developments across all platforms, not just on your smartphone, but online, biometrically, to be able to authenticate yourself so you don’t have to remember passwords and usernames, which for people with a range of disabilities is a huge barrier.

“There’s a cross-sector initiative called passkeys to try and make sure that all platforms have these passkeys that are like a token that can be authenticated with your thumb or your face or whatever it might be, so that usernames and passwords are going to be a thing of the past.  From a security point of view, that’s really important as well.

“Wearables is another area.  I’ve got my Apple watch on which I use for fitness a lot.  I also use it for authenticating on websites that have multi-factor authentication, it’ll just ask me to tap ‘allow’ on my watch, rather than having to deal with the authenticator app, for example.  I’m really excited about other wearables such as  glasses. There are a range of smart glasses out there, they’re not that affordable and they are quite limited, but I’m expecting loads of patents to come out in the next five year some of which I’m hoping will turn into a reality. Apple have been strongly rumoured to be bringing out a headset in 2023.

“We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds, but, literally every few months there are new and exciting things that open up huge possibilities for all of us but particularly for people with disabilities.”

Robin says of his proudest achievements: “I just want to carry on hopefully making a slight difference, either in dealing with disabled people directly, or by engaging with Government to make sure that the policies are all that they should be.  You would think that once they had prioritised digital inclusion and given it sufficient resourcing and focus in one piece of legislation, that that kind of level of understanding would be brought forward into other bits, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way in Government. So, that’s an ongoing challenge.”

He is also proud to have been awarded an MBE in 2017 and received an Honorary Doctorate in Computer Science from the University of Suffolk.  . He says: “Those kind of things are like, wow, where did they come from?  Why me? I feel very, very proud to have been singled out for those.  …  It’s an amazing area to work in, and hopefully just being able to carry on doing what I’m doing for the foreseeable future will help me feel proud about what I’m doing.”

“Before that, it was up to disabled individuals, or to organisations like the RNIB for example, to do a class action against a website or organisation to get them to fix it. Oftentimes the cases were settled out of court, the issue would be fixed but there wouldn’t be any appreciation that these actions were taking place because part of the settlement would be anonymity.”

He compares it to the US where litigation is usually very high profile, adding: “Here in the UK, it never really registered, and so there wasn’t the urgency. However, with these public sector body accessibility regulations, it suddenly became very public, and that massively increased the level of accessibility within those organisations.

“Unfortunately, the second bit of the EU legislation that covered the other sectors (everything outside of the public sector such as private organisations, charities, etc) didn’t make it before Brexit came along. It’s in force in Europe and is doing amazing things. I just hope there’s an appetite for something similar here in the UK.”

While Robin says it is a shame that the legislation was never adopted, he adds: “As a nation, I do think we prioritise inclusion.  We do care about disability, and making sure that the right initiatives are put in place; whether they’re actually delivered or sufficiently funded is a challenge.  … It’s a real challenge keeping on top of that and making sure that there are sufficient resources and prioritisation for certain issues across disability concerns, not just digital.”

He highlights all the ways in which technology, in particular PCs, can be adapted to allow anyone to use them, adding: “To work with technology to deliver a career in digital is massively empowering.  Having said that, you can use technology to do most careers these days.  … Go to the AbilityNet website, or call our freephone number and talk to us about optimising your technology for your needs, even if it’s just going through the accessibility settings on your iPhone.

“I don’t think anyone should settle for the vanilla experience when it comes to any of their devices.  If you did a spider diagram of all the settings in the settings app on your phone, over 60 per cent of those will be under accessibility, so that’s an area of configuration on your device that you ignore at your peril.  We’re all different shapes and sizes, particularly when it comes to mobile computing everybody needs to have their devices optimised for the exact same reasons that someone with a vision impairment 24/7 would need.

“There’s a brilliant website that we maintain called MyCompterMyWay.com, and that has the accessibility settings of all the main devices, Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, and the main software suites like Office, with all the accessibility settings laid out in a step-by-step way. We also give the hot key instructions because a lot of people aren’t going to be using a mouse, so, you’re left behind if you don’t also tell them how to make those changes independently on the keyboard.”

Robin also does a series of podcasts providing insight and practical information on how to use various new technologies as they emerge, including the weekly Echo Show and daily Dot to Dot show which look at how to use the Echo Dot. He says: “This is one area of technology that is growing very quickly, and really providing a lot of utility for people. They’re very inclusive, even the Echoes with a screen have got all the accessibility features built in, speech output, magnification software, the ability to be able to have text, live captions, live subtitles coming up for what’s spoken on the screen.  If you can’t talk to it, then you can tap and it’ll bring up a keyboard or some common phrases. It’s another burgeoning area where people get a lot of benefit from having a play with them.”

Interviewed by Jane bird

Transcribed by Susan Hutton

Abstracted by Lynda Feeley