[I put this paragraph about the research questions to remind myself and the readers temporarily for this draft.] [My research question: This research is about the development of assistive applications (apps). Taking the development of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) apps as a reference, I would like to explore how the understandings of dis/ability and accessibility, and the hope of technology to liberate users and mitigate barriers are deployed into the emerging apps by developers and relevant stakeholders in the context of the dominance of smart mobile devices and apps. On the other hand, how the understandings of dis/ability and accessibility, in particular by developers and relevant stakeholders, are mutually shaped by the dominance of smart mobile devices and apps. Meanwhile, what kind of tensions between different stakeholders and professions, different users’ group and different understands about dis/ability and accessibility lies behind the growing development of AAC apps?]
There is a trend to develop assistive technologies as apps in recent year. And this trend might have a huge impact on the understandings of dis/ability and accessibility either by developers or the publics. In this chapter, I will discuss why the current logic of developing AAC apps could be problematic. The problem could be caused by the conflicting logics between the development of assistive technologies and the development of apps. The first step to carry out this discussion is to explore what does the logic lie behind the development of AAC apps.
Why is that there could be a conflicting logic between the development of assistive technologies and the development of apps? When talking about assistive technology, the logic to develop assistive technology seems to be obvious, that is to enable people in needs, especially disabled people, to carry out all kinds of daily works (Blume 2012, a NOTE here!!!). And because some of these assistive technologies, such as AAC devices, are dedicated devices designed to serve a relatively small group of people, these devices can be quite expensive and need to be circulated via medical professionals.
On the other hand, it might be difficult to specify a unified logic of the development of apps, since products of the app vary and complex. However, some scholars pointed out that most of the app products are indeed free or relatively cheap. And their free or cheap prices are aligned with the development logic of solutionism and microfunctionality (Duguay 2019). The development of apps is solutionism, meaning that they are developed under an "intellectual pathology that recognizes problems based on just one criterion: whether they are 'solvable' with a nice and clean technological solution at our disposal (Morozov 2013)." And apps are described as microfunctionality for they are "single and limited purposed software that splits up and breaks down multistep activities into smaller and more focused and specific components (Duguay 2019; see also Morris and Elkins 2015)." Moreover, launching an app on an app store on an iPad or other tablets implies certain affordance. Thus, the logic of the development of AAC, or assistive technologies in general, might not meet the logic of the development of apps. It is crucial to ask, in the first step, what is the logic of the development of AAC apps, and then we can further explore how the understandings of dis/ability and accessibility are deployed into the emerging apps.
When I use the term 'logic' to describe the affinity of words and practices done by AAC developers and relevant stakeholders, I am borrowed it from Annemarie Mol's usage in the Logic of Care. Rather than using discourse or modes of order to presumably accept the existing socio-material orders or power relations, Mol's usage of logic focuses is the rationales of these orders or relations themselves. By using the term 'logic,' it opens to "the exploration of what it is appropriate or logical to do in some site or situation, and what is not. It seeks a local, fragile and yet pertinent coherence. This coherence is not necessarily obvious to the people involved. It need not even be verbally available to them. It may be implicit: embedded in practices, buildings, habits and machines. And yet, if we want to talk about it, we need to translate a logic into language (Mol 2008, 10)." For the same reason, I use the term 'logic' to make "make words for, and out of, practices (Mol 2008, 10)." Moreover, because part of my research participants works in the AAC, I use the logic of development to stress the difference to the idea, or concept of design or development merely from developers' worldview. Their words and practices are embedded and mutually shaped by the socio-cultural-material world afoorded to them. Thus, by using the word logic, it seeks more than theses concepts and ideas, but the dynamics, coherence and working logic behind these ideas.
In order to explore the logic of the development of AAC apps, in the following content of this chapter, I will use interviews with representatives from AAC companies as my main source of analysis, along with interviews with other stakeholders and relevant documents, such as materials from these developers' websites and other digital platforms. When having conversations with representatives from AAC companies, prices of AAC apps and the issue of choices and accessibility were the two main topics frequently mentioned by the research participants. Indeed, compared to limited choices of dedicated AAC devices which usually cost more than a few thousand pounds, AAC apps are much cheaper, ranging from free to a few hundred pounds, which allow users to download directly on their tablets without going through medical professionals. Moreover, due to the low technical and financial barrier to launch an app on an app store [REF], according to the collection of the website BRIDGINGAPPS which targets English-speaking users, there are more than 3000 AAC apps available on app stores or other digital platforms [REF]. Amongst these over 3000 AAC apps, some are developed by AAC companies who also or originally work on dedicated AAC devices, and these apps are widely adopted and deemed as reliable by many professionals like speech and language therapists [REF]. However, AAC companies developing both dedicated AAC devices and apps sometimes have mixed and even contradictory attitudes toward AAC apps, which are particularly conspicuous in the face of the issues of prices and choices, even if the apps help the companies reach more and wider range of clients. Through analyzing my research participants in respects of the prices issue and the issue of choices and accessibility, it helps me to look into the logic behind those decisions, compromises and practices when it comes to developing AAC as apps. I would further argue that the logic of the development of AAC apps shares some of the characters as what Annemarie Mol called the logic of choice, in contrast to the logic of care (Mol 2008).
1. Prices of AAC
(1) the predicaments
Before the AAC app was launched, similar to many expensive dedicated assistive technologies, there were three major groups of actors in the development of AAC devices. That is, AAC developers, AAC users and medical practitioners, mainly speech and language therapists. At least, this was how many of the AAC developers saw how the AAC industry was formed [FOOTNOTE!!!]. One of my research participants who works in an AAC company, Logan, depicted the relationship between the three groups of actors in the following vivid and representative way. In the next chapter, I will discuss more about the groups of actors involved in the development of AAC apps, which are more complex than the following description, but let us accept this simplified picture just for now.
For us [the AAC developers],... the people we generally sell to are schools so if you imagine you have, the base level is the school, you've then got...the salespeople at the top, they come from the top and in the middle, you've got this set of organisations, these advisory services, these local authority teams whose job it is to find out about what's happening in the market, so with businesses, disseminate that information to the users, to the schools so it's those people in the middle there that we generally, we've always had a very good relationship with them, [whom] we generally look to take knowledge from. (Interview 2019/10/07)
[Fig.: Insert a pyramid graph to represent my interpretation of the above description]
In this picture, AAC users relied on speech and language therapists and other similar assessment and advisory services not only to get access to AAC devices but also get subsidized of the expensive equipment via those authoritative advisory services. On the other hand, AAC developers relied on language therapists to get access to users, and the therapists' first-hand clinical knowledge about users. Meanwhile, speech and language therapists need to work closely with AAC developers to have provisions of AAC devices and updated knowledge about these devices. This was how the world of AAC used to work from an AAC developer's viewpoint.
However, after the first AAC app, Proloquo2Go, was launched on the App Store by AssistiveWare, things have changed [REF and interview]. First of all, the prices of AAC have decreased drastically. Without considering the costs of the mobile devices in which users can load apps, the prices of AAC apps have dropped from more than thousands of pounds for a dedicated AAC device to hundreds of pounds or even less for an AAC app. Second and subsequently, users can now get access to AAC without getting through an advisory service as long as the users have an iPad or other tablets. Third, due to the relatively low technical and financial barriers to launch an app on an app store for developers, AAC apps have started to sprout enormously. These changes have also brought impacts to the AAC industry.
When I read a 2009 report about the AT-ICT industry across Europe previously and tried to have a brief understanding of the AAC industry, I was confused that many of the AAC companies on the report no longer exists (Stack et. al. 2009). One of my research participants, Lewis, who works as a researcher in the AAC field of provided his explanation based on his observations.
He told me that AAC companies used to fund their research, providing training and services via selling expensive dedicated AAC devices. Since the launch of AAC apps on iPad as much cheaper and accessible and easily downloadable options for users, this indirectly caused many AAC companies went bankrupt or need to find new ways to operate their business, and the mode of selling and service providing of AAC has changed drastically (interview 2019/12/09). Similar concerns have seemed to rise in the AAC industry that the emergence of AAC app would deteriorate the AAC industry and AAC users would not get a proper and professional assessment and devices which made the founder and CEO of AssistiveWare, David Niemeijer came to respond to these concerns. In an article titled 'The democratization of communication: How the App Store changed production, distribution, and access to Augmentative and Alternative Communication' on his web blog, he argued that the emergence of AAC apps enables the industry to explore a larger market and a wider group of users (Niemeijer 2018). Although Lewis and David Niemeijer did not provide a decisive explanation to why many of the AAC companies on the list disappeared, the reasons could be complicated, their reactions at least showed the emergence of AAC apps has brought about changes and concerns to the AAC industry.
(2) three strategies
Compared to entrepreneurial companies like AssistiveWare, which is relatively new and works mostly on developing apps, other AAC companies, which used to developed dedicated AAC devices but now join the development of AAC apps as well, have more contradictory attitudes toward the development of AAC apps. And judging from companies attitudes toward AAC apps, there are at least three strategies to develop AAC apps, and the rationale of these strategies can be understood via the issue of prices.
(a) an app as a cheaper version of the dedicated AAC device
James works in an AAC company as a consultant manager with a computer science background, and he also develops AAC software himself. His company develops both dedicated devices and AAC apps but emphasizes more on dedicated devices. Therefore his responses to the topic about prices not only represent a salesperson’s rhetorics but also characterize this contradictory attitude towards AAC apps from an AAC company’s point of view which originally developed and still focused on developing dedicated AAC devices. Indeed, within all of the research participants, James was the one talked about issues related to prices the most.
The above response is likely to reflect the typical reactions of frustrations of many traditional AAC companies. Users, including medical professionals like speech and language therapists, tend to seek free or cheap apps as a priority above other AAC features and implementations after more and more AAC apps coming out. And his analogy of medical treatment to AAC devices was not a random one. Compared to most of the apps, AAC, and assistive technologies in general, bear the characteristics of medical treatments and care, which, from James' point of view, cannot be deduced to what a free app can do. And AAC and assistive technologies also bear the characteristics of daily necessities, which James continued using other analogies to describe AAC:I think they [AAC apps] have been very successful in raising awareness of AAC in general. The downside and in fact this is something that I recently posted on a forum, was a therapist was asking if anybody could recommend some cheap apps to use for some clients that she had in mind for AAC and it frustrated me a little bit because […] cheap isn’t always best and assuming you need an app it's quite a sweeping generalisation and I tried to give the analogy could you imagine if your doctor only gave out paracetamol? I mean they know you've got pain, they’re going to address it by giving you morphine and paracetamol but actually what you need is abdominal surgery but it's a lot more expensive or in fact the medication you need is a lot more expensive, so again, I find it difficult to accept there are many other places that would look for a cheaper alternative. (Interview 2019/09/06)
I think about [...] I drive and [...] here are so many variations and choices of cars that we need because we all have different needs. My car at the moment is quite a big car and it's fully loaded with equipment for a conference. I really would like a two-seater Porche but that wouldn't be suitable and so, you know, if, and it's the same with AAC. I know people who have been given AAC apps but actually they, they're not, the battery life isn’t long enough, the voice isn’t loud enough, it isn’t durable enough, they physically can't access it well, and they need a dedicated device. So, that's the other side of apps where they're more affordable but actually I think they’re given to people and that's a word I like to use, they're often given and not prescribed. I find that AAC solution ... need to be prescribed and that's something that I'm quite passionate about. (Interview 2019/09/06)
For some traditional AAC developers like James' company, AAC devices not only share traits with medical treatments but also with daily tools like vehicles, both you need to consider different functions to meet your needs than just the cheap prices. James went back to the analogy of medical treatments and made an even more interesting description that AAC devices should be 'prescribed' but not 'given.' The word prescribed were used to imply that the distribution of AAC should be assessed and provided by medical professionals, rather than just consumed as a consumer product. The issue of whether AAC and many other assistive technologies fall in the category of medical treatments has become more prominent with the emergence of AAC apps [NOTE!!! or I will have a discussion about this later]. Also, it is less likely to be achievable to 'prescribed' an AAC app via app stores. Even though these conflicting attitudes, James' company follows the trend to develop its own AAC apps. Here is the description from James of the AAC app products launched by his company.
We have apps as well, and remember that, you know, the apps are there to be a cheaper solution, I get that, and it does fit the, certain clients, but there are apps out there, so I have people buying apps then contacting me and going, 'Can you provide us with some training?'. I'm like, 'of course I can, no problem.' 'What would you train me on?', and I tell them and they say, 'That's fantastic, can we choose a date?', and I give them a date and I say, 'By the way, it's £295 for that training', 'Oh we're not paying for that', 'like okay well there’s no training'. If they buy a dedicated system the training's included, the support's all included, so you simply get what you pay for. (Interview 2019/09/06)
The strategy taken by James' company is to develop and launch AAC apps together with its dedicated AAC device products. However, James explicitly stated that his company develop AAC apps as cheaper versions of their software products equipped on their dedicated devices. Moreover, the prices of these apps do not cover the fees for training. Thus, the prices of their apps are much cheaper than their correspondent dedicated devices. It is likely that the company makes the prices of apps cheaper so that they are comparable with other apps on digital platforms. After all, users are expecting apps to be free or cheap, and digital platforms like App Store are a platform that putting all kinds of product on the same place. Meanwhile, James also expressed his concerns about the cheap prices of AAC apps having impacts on the AAC industry.
I think it would be [that the development of app will be detrimental to the industry] and that's my worry is that people always want to try and go as cheap as possible and go much cheaper, people, can use apps but if companies like us sells around offering specialised equipment that would be a huge loss to many people. People always want cheaper, I get that, but those compromises have, have implications and like I said, you go back to the doctor scenario, I could just give paracetamol, we would have a lot more sick people. The problem I think we have is that these therapists have huge caseloads and what they want to go is tick, tick, tick, tick yeah they’re all done, they’re done and we know budgets are tighter, we get that, we know that happens, we know AAC, dedicated AAC, is expensive but yeah I think it would be a huge loss if there wasn't that expertise in the field of AAC, if it was just left to Apps it would be a significant loss. Not just for the products out there but for the experience and knowledge out there as well. (interview 2019/09/06)
Even though James' company does launch AAC apps and develop them as cheaper versions of the dedicated AAC devices, he worried about the trend having bad impact on the AAC industry. Indeed, cheap AAC apps launched on app stores distract users attention away from a crucial part of using AAC - implementation. And the way how apps are sold and downloaded on an app store on one's mobile devices is less likely to cover the process of implementation, in which the issue of implementation marks a huge difference of selling mode between dedicated devices and AAC apps. [FOOTNOTE!!! And I will talk about the issue of implementation of AAC later.] There are more differences between AAC apps and dedicated AAC devices in terms of prices. When James introduced me his company's products and emphasized the importance of marching devices with users' abilities, he continued that:
How loud an iPad is. Is it loud enough for, in their classroom? You know, does it need a, and that's the other thing is, people say okay it's cheaper but actually if I look through here now, if I say, for example, I'm going to get an app, it's £150 cost it's cheaper but actually I also need a specialised case that gives me robustness and durability and a keyguard and I also need [...] yet they have to go out and buy an iPad as well so by the time I've bought an iPad, and I could be spending, I don't know, £1200 on an app, an iPad and a case. Not, not so cheap now. And then who’s going to fund it because the parents would often say, well they’ve gone and spent £1200 of their own money but actually the device could have been funded by health or education and therefore cost them nothing. Although they’ve bought cheap, they needn’t have spent at all and they’d have had a lot more support ... that. So, it, there’s many, there’s many different factors that need to be considered when you’re choosing an app or a device. (interview 2019/09/06)
The strategy taken by James'company to develop AAC apps as cheaper versions of dedicated AAC devices implies that they value the two differently. James reminded that not only do the prices of AAC apps not cover the training and implementation, but the cost of other hardware are usually not counted by users or customers as well, such as the price of an iPad. Interestingly, the prices of AAC apps and AAC devices have actually become cheaper, but the prices of iPad and other tablets seem to be increasing.
(b) explore other ways to develop AAC apps
Another research participant, Oliver, who worked in another AAC company in business development had a more pragmatic view on AAC apps when it comes to prices. Oliver’s company also developed both dedicated AAC devices and AAC apps, but put more efforts on AAC apps and thought that AAC apps should not be restricted to face-to-face communication like most traditional AAC devices. From his point of view, AAC apps, although launched on platforms like App Store, are still different from most of the apps.
In our experience, the apps aren’t really being bought without some guidance from a professional at some point [...] and so that's not a family just saying, 'Oh our child doesn’t have speech we need to buy an app'. [...] So, I think that might be different with other apps, I think particularly the very low-cost ones. You know, you're talking about, you know, a £10 AAC app but then I think it's also fair to say that generally when you're buying AAC apps you kind of get what you pay for so the ones that are, you know, more robust, easier to use, more powerful editing, more options, access options etc., you pay more to have that stuff. [...] But you’re less likely, because of the cost, you're less likely I think as a family, just to go out and buy it because someone told you it's good, cost it's still, you know, a few hundred pounds and that's yeah, a big decision. (Interview 2019/10/02)
In the above paragraph, Oliver pointed out at least three crucial features of AAC apps. Firstly, he understood that AAC apps launched by main AAC companies were nothing counted as cheap, but you get what you pay for; the prices of AAC apps reflect their vital features like robustness, accessibility, usability, choices of customisation, etc. In addition, from the interviewee's point of view, because of the cost of AAC apps, they are unlikely to be purchased in the way similar to other apps, simply by search and click on the App Store. Buying an AAC app is a big decision to make, and is more likely to be advised by professionals, which is not provided by digital platforms like App Store. Oliver continued his arguments as follows.
I think unless they have a clear recommendation from someone, you know it's still quite a big decision. I mean even if you were going to just spend £20 or £30 on something like that I think as a parent, as a family you would still be thinking is this the right thing for my child, am I, you know, am I just going to be getting something that isn’t the right thing, I don't want to waste my money. (Interview 2019/10/02)
Here Oliver pointed out that buying an AAC app is a big decision not simply because of the prices but also AAC as assistive technology. And thus, the experience of buying an AAC app is different from buying and downloading other kinds of apps. From Oliver's point of view, it is a crucial decision, and users might need to stick to and reply on the product they buy. However, it is a well-known issue that the abandonment rate of AAC devices is quite high (Waller 2019). And there is not enough research being done to show the abandonment rate of AAC apps, but I would try to discuss a few factors affecting it later. Another issue is that parents and users might not 'hesitate' as Oliver expected. As James indicated, many parents and speech and language therapists ask information about free or cheap AAC apps in online forums. The launching of AAC apps on app stores with their relatively cheap prices raises more users' awareness of AAC's existence. Moreover, from a business' point of view, the interviewee noticed that the different prices linked to dedicated devices and AAC apps on iPads involved different actions and reactions to the devices from their users.
I can see, you know, this might be a child that's going to likely to throw it across the room, so they think to themselves well I'll just go for an iPad in a foam case cos I think that offers them the best protection. And it's cheap to replace if they do break it. (Interview 2019/10/02)
The above excerpt shows users' different attitudes toward dedicated AAC devices and AAC apps on iPads, which were also indicated by a few other interviewees working in charities or service providing organizations. Users, including direct users and indirect users like school teachers, sometimes feel petrified when facing dedicated AAC devices. Their high prices could be one of the reasons, but lack of training and implementation to use the devices could also be the causes and lead to the high abandonment of these devices. However, the lower prices of AAC apps on iPads or other tablets make the use of devices more easily to be approached. This could also be caused by the popularization of smart devices in general that makes the use of these devices less petrifying.
[In seeing the pros and cons of AAC apps pragmatically, the strategy of Oliver's company in facing the trend of AAC apps is to develop AAC apps which can coordinate other popular apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, etc..]
(c) develop AAC app to expand market and users and collaborate with big IT companies
Ella, who worked in an AAC company in a local sales team with a background in special education also held a more positive attitude toward the development of AAC apps. Like James’ and Oliver’s companies, Ella’s company also develops both AAC apps and dedicated AAC devices, but what is more about her company is that the company collaborates with the big IT company Microsoft in terms of software and hardware features designed for disabled users. From her point of view, free and cheap AAC apps and launching AAC apps on mainstream digital platforms is definitely a way to open up new markets.
Certainly, for us as a company putting things into apps and getting it out to a more mainstream environment through things like the Apple Store, the Microsoft Store means that we can significantly decrease the price of our products because we can get it out to more people. […] We know that only 10% of people who could benefit from AAC in the world, actually use AAC. […] There’s huge potential and outside of the UK and emerging markets in parts of Asia, Africa, South America, even within Europe there are countries and places that just have very, very limited access to AAC.[…] And the lower prices as well, so in emerging markets where their, where funding isn’t established for AAC, you know a £40 app is going to be very, very appealing. (Interview 2019/10/18)
Ella pointed out that AAC companies develop apps and launch on platforms like App Store could most likely due to the market, in which App Store and alike platforms are mainstream environment, so products can be exposed to wider groups of potential users, even in the regions that companies are not in contact or familiar with but could be get access to via mainstream platforms. And thus because of the wider markets, the prices of the products can be made cheaper and this is an incentive to the potential users in the emerging markets. In short, the cheaper prices of AAC apps are not only used to attract potential users in the mainstream platforms but are the result of being put on the mainstream platforms. However, I think the wider markets and the cheaper prices are not in a causal relationship as it might be intuitively seen, but this is also what some outstanding developers like David Niemeijer from AssistiveWare have argued (Niemeijer 2018). For instance, James told me that their AAC apps are just cheaper versions of the dedicated counterparts and the cheaper prices also exclude the implementation and other services. So the higher prices of dedicated devices actually include services and a certain amount of the fixed costs, but the situation could be varied from company to company and depended on different strategies to make a price. Moreover, the existence of potential markets and users, which might be able to reach via mainstream platforms is based on the assumption that potential users don’t know the existence of AAC, don’t know they could benefit from AAC, or could not get access to AAC, but apparently whether potential users want to use an AAC app relies on more complexed factors.
However, even if Ella seemed to look at the bright side of the trend of AAC apps, she did mention some potential drawbacks resulted from the cheaper prices of AAC apps.
Parents and teachers and therapists are exposed to a lot more choice and they're not necessarily always making the choice on the right reasons, you know, cost will often be a driving motivator. So they'll buy the cheapest thing or a free thing that isn’t necessarily always the best and then they expect, they expect that there will be progress made in a quick time and when it's not sometimes they become demotivated or say, you know, a blanket statement the AAC doesn’t work for that person, when actually if, you know, they had a better app with more support, you know, the person could do well. […] Well we know there's a, there's a huge rate of abandonment when it comes to AAC so yeah, absolutely, you know, the app will certainly, if it's not a well-supported app it will add to the rate of abandonment. (Interview 2019/10/18)
Although the high abandonment rate of AAC devices has always been an issue as I mentioned, this conversation was almost the only time my research participants of those who are from AAC companies talked about this issue. Ella linked the cause of high abandonment to the lack of support in AAC apps in particular. On the contrary, some interviewees thought that users, indirect and direct ones, are more willing to use AAC apps on iPad and tablets due to reasons like familiarity and cheaper prices, etc.. But the lack of support and training is indeed the main reason causing high abandonment of AAC. Moreover, Ella’s point still reflect AAC apps are more than other ordinary app product and require some professional knowledge to be chosen.
Like James pointed out that the cheap prices of AAC apps reflect their lack of services, Ella linked the various prices of AAC apps to different business models of AAC companies. The cheaper of the AAC app, the more likely the product replies on other digital systems, and the smaller in the scale of the company. On the contrary, the more expensive the AAC app, the more likely the company builds up its own digital systems to support the product. And in Ella’s view, that makes an app more reliable if the company is able to control as many digital systems on which its apps rely as possible.
It could be [the development of AAC app rely more and more on other hardware and software systems] and it depends on the companies. Some companies do not create any hardware; they're completely reliant on others, some companies do, it depends and it's up to the customer and the consumer to decide which they go for. Some people are willing to pay a premium to not have a bunch of different elements put together to make a system. (Interview 2019/10/18)
What Ella pointed out is that it is a company's decision to decide whether they are developing an app relying on other operating systems, or they're making their own and controllable software. And it is also customers' choice to choose a cheaper app building on "a bunch of different elements putting together to make a system" or they choose to pay more to have a more consistent and reliable system. Under the growth development of AAC apps, the distribution of AAC devices seems to be depicted as a seesaw battle between customers’ choices and AAC companies’ choice and leave little rooms for other discussions, such as implementation.
From the discussion about prices in the conversations with James, Oliver and Ella, we can see some features behind the logic of the development of AAC apps. Also, How traditional AAC developers react differently to the trend of appification.
(3) price - three frameworks
[In conversation with Rabeharisoa and Doganova (2020)'s idea of problematization of prices as different idntities in their case of rare disease: prices as moral identity, prices as epistemic identity and prices as political identity. ]
[the meaning of prices -- economic shaping is social shaping]]
2. Choices and accessibility (why I put these two terms together???)
In contrast to the contradictory attitudes of representatives from AAC companies toward AAC apps, charities and other organizations who provide service to potential AAC users show a more positive attitude toward the development of AAC apps. In face, many of these assistve technology advisors have experiences of developing AAC apps themselves [REF]. One participant, Jack, who is an assistive technology advisor from a charity characterized such an attitude. Part of Jack’s job was to explore, find out and test out available resources, and then he could recommend it to potential users. He held a positive attitude toward the development of AAC apps and apps in general and found great potential to these apps.
I've just written a blog article about all these new tools that are there and they’re fantastic, you know, so it's those, if we hear and we find out and we test them, then we can let other people know about them because it saves money, you know ((Laughs)). (Interview 2019/06/21)
What troubled him was that people, especially potential users, were not aware of the existence of these free or cheap apps and tools, and then spent a lot of money to purchase specialized equipment which might not be suitable.
They would just maybe meet up and think, 'We think this pupil needs that', in some cases they'd go out and buy a piece of equipment that costs a few thousand pounds for a VI, for a pupil with visual impairments and then find out it maybe wasn't the best suited. (Interview 2019/06/21)
However, when I asked Jack about whether he thought the free and cheap prices would be detrimental to the industry, his responses were worth taking up.
Well, I think a lot of companies have had to adjust, you know they’ve had to change, so they’ve had to develop apps so they really just relied on a Windows product […] you see them diverting into other[systems]. […] But we [as a service providing organization] also do promote suppliers because they give us free software to test to try out so we can go out to pupils, you know, if were doing an assessment we need to have software on our laptops and iPads to see, so they often give us [products] so we can say to a pupil, 'Now what do you think of this, what do you think of that, what do you think would be best suited for you?', so yeah, so we, they help us and we don't recommend but, you know, we can sort of, we can give it to people to make up their own choices, their own ideas what they think is best for them to do. (Interview 2019/06/21)
Instead of responding to my question directly, Jack said that the developers and companies may need to find ways to adjust the situation, like developing their apps in different operating systems. And their organization did promote theses non-free software or products to pupils, which are sponsored by developers, and they did not recommend these products, but let pupils choose what works best for them. It seems that, Jack, as an assistive technology advisor working in service providing organization, it is difficult for him to say anything about whether the free or cheap prices being detrimental to the industry. He would see the trend of appification a geed thing in general. Above all, the trend provides users with free or cheap products. Second, the trend encourage developers to adjust to mainstream operating systems and make their products more accessible. Moreover, with more products with various prices and functions to come out, the trend does good to empower users to have more options to choose and it is also the rights of the users to final words to choose the right products.
3. The logic of choice and something else
[An introduction to Mol's idea of the logic of choice, in contrast to the logic of care.]
[I would like to argue that the logic of the development of AAC apps shares some of the characters as what Annemarie Mol called the logic of choice at least in the following perspectives. First, the discussion of (cheap) prices framed and restriced the development of AAC app under the logic of choice. For example, companies need to calculate on cost, resource and updates of apps. And app stores restricted certain ways of consuming things, which distract other aspects of the development of AAC apps, like training and implementation. Other than market logic of choice, moreover, the appeal to the right to get access to assistive technologies and democratize the distribution of assistive technologies facilitate the logic of choice.]
4. Summary
*Glossary
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