Kantar's Profiles Blog

Last week, Uber announced that it expanded its service to better accommodate people with disabilities with the introduction of uberASSIST. As part of the service, “driver-partners are specifically trained by Open Doors Organization to assist riders into vehicles and can accommodate folding wheelchairs, walkers, and scooters.”

People with disabilities have an annual disposable income of more than $220 billion USD - yet the vast majority of market research is not designed to include them. All too often the exclusion of people with disabilities causes companies to seek retrofitted solutions to address access barriers. The tech industry finally is waking up to the realization that there is a need and a growing demand to create apps and other technology-based solutions that go beyond solving boredom and entertainment issues for the masses to offering personalized solutions that eliminate barriers for 57 million consumers with access needs.

Beyond just technology companies, more businesses today are focusing their attention on the creation of new products and services that promote greater access for people with disabilities. From the University of Washington to Apple, Google and Microsoft, a new phenomenon has emerged that goes beyond innovations like speech recognition systems, hearing aids, power wheelchairs and cars that drive themselves, to include other practical and desirable offerings, e.g., accessible packaging designs for commodity products, accessible websites and applications, adaptive yoga classes and adaptive dentistry.