Marketing to Consumers with Disabilities: Interpreting the Numbers

Published by the Telecommunications Industry Association, in conjunction with the Electronic Industries Foundation
http://www.tiaonline.org/access/etr_brochure.html

Introduction

One of the primary goals of commercial product design is to maximize market share. One factor that can reduce market share is the number of potential customers who cannot use a product as a result of aging or disabling conditions-a consumer segment that is already large and will grow at an expanding rate in the 21st century as the baby boom generation ages. Conversely, accessible product design consideration by planners and designers of the needs of persons with functional limitations and disabilities-results in features that make products usable by persons with functional limitations and disabilities. It also make them more convenient for every-one else. Incorporating appropriate human factors opens up the market to everyone.

This report provides usable statistical and demographic information about people with functional limitations. It has been produced to help manufacturers plan and design products and then promote features that will enable all individuals, including those with functional limitations, to perform independently and efficiently at home and in the workplace.

The Electronic Industries Foundation (EIF) and Inclusive Technologies developed the report, extracting marketing information from data available from the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and statistics from the Center on Disability Statistics of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). Each year NCHS conducts the National Health Interview Survey, an in-depth look at approximately 50,000 households. Unlike many surveys, the 1994 survey asks questions about functional limitations (e.g., vision impairments) rather than about diseases (e.g., glaucoma). About 20,000 individuals of 107,000 queried reported a disability. Percentages can be presumed to be representative and useful for making important product development and marketing decisions. The NCHS data allow researchers to cross-tabulate individual records, so this study was able to look at disability in combination with other demographic measures, such as age, income, gender and marital status.

Information presented here is drawn from these sources and from consumer studies that provided parallel or comparative information.

Demographic Characteristics

Different sources give somewhat different totals and measures of functional limitations or disabilities. This report uses primarily NCHS's baseline numbers. For purposes of reporting data, a functional limitation is defined as any physical, cognitive or sensory condition that prevents a person from caring for himself or herself, communicating, working, playing or functioning in an environment where other people function with-out difficulty. Specific limitations in activities of daily living vary but include, for example, difficulty in interpreting information, seeing, hearing, moving some or all body parts or moving about.

NCHS and the Census agree that roughly 15 percent of the total population have some type of functional limitation. More than one-third of the total cannot perform major life activities like working, going to school, playing or caring for themselves.

Disability Categories

The study looked at the impact of physical, cognitive, sensory and speech or language limitations. The two largest groups of individuals are those with physical disabilities. First among them are people with mobility limitations, that is, limited ability to get about or limited muscle control. Second in frequency are individuals with limited hand use, that is, limited movement or range of motion. Third are the people who have one or another cognitive disability, for example a learning disability that limits ability to interpret information. Sensory disabilities follow: hearing and vision impairments. The smallest group identified are individuals whose speech and language capabilities are impaired.

Disability Categories

When looked at by gender, the rankings change slightly in some categories: Although loss of mobility is the leading functional limitation for both men and women, far more women (10.4 million) than men (5.8 million) are affected. Hearing limitations ranks second for men, although limited hand use follows very closely. For men, cognitive impairments rank fourth rather than third; limitations in vision and speech and language follow in the same order as for men and women combined. Among women, only the rankings for limitations to vision and hearing differ (fourth and fifth respectively) from those for both genders combined.

Disability Frequencies

More of the people with some type of functional limitation are women (53 percent) than men (47 percent). The rate of disability increases with age after age 25. Among both men and women with disabilities 25 years or older, one-third are 65 or older.

Education

Nearly one-third of individuals with disabilities 25 or older continued their education after graduating from high school: nearly 6 million enrolled in college; over 2.5 million more received bachelor's degrees, and nearly 2 million additional individuals continued in advanced education.

Income And Employment

Over 5 million individuals with functional limitations or disabilities (roughly 13 percent of people with disabilities) live in households with annual incomes of $50,000 or more. An additional 4.5 million share in annual household incomes of $35,000 to $50,000.

Family Income By Disability

People with disabilities who work are distributed through-out occupational categories similarly to workers without dis-abilities. Within most disability groups, however, a slightly higher percentage hold executive, administrative, managerial and professional specialty positions than occurs in the general population. Overall, nearly 3.5 million employed individuals with disabilities (8 percent) work in such positions.

Living Arrangements

Although 36 percent of the general public live alone or with one other person, more than half of all people with disabilities live in households of two or fewer.

Household of Two or Fewer

• 70 percent of those with mobility-related disabilities
• 68 percent with visual impairments
• 67 percent with limited use of their hands
• 65 percent with impaired hearing
• 61 percent with cognitive disabilities
• 48 percent with disabilities relating to speech

People with disabilities are more likely than the general population to live with spouses (53 percent vs. 45 percent) and less likely to live with nonrelatives.

Percentage of Individuals with Disabilities by Age in Households of 2 People or Fewer

NCHS does not identify many separate types of dwellings, but the study did reveal that the percentage of people with disabilities living in houses or apartments (92 percent) is nearly identical to that of the general population (93 percent).

Comparative Findings

The study team compared people in one disability group to people in the other groups as well as comparing them to the general population. Although all disability groups lag behind the national aver-age (23 percent) in the percentage living in upper income households, significant differences occur between disability groups. In households with incomes of $50,000 or more, over 1 million have hearing impairments; 600,000 have serious difficulty seeing or are blind; over 400,000 have difficulty with or have lost ability to move about or manipulate objects, and over 300,000 have difficulty communicating or understanding.

• According to several studies, including the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA) study, "Senior Market Potential," general consumers age 50 and older consider price first in making a purchasing decision, followed closely by reputation of brand and ease of use. People with disabilities use the same criteria, according to CEMA's "Assistive Devices Focus Groups" study. When one considers that 2.2 million Americans with disabilities age 55 and over share in household incomes of $50,000 and more, these are important considerations.

• The NCHS study determined that about 50,000 adults with visual impairments use some form of adapted computer.

Many accommodations for vision-related disabilities are built into newer operating systems and may not have been counted as adaptations. A recent consumer study found that consumers with visual dis-abilities, including blindness, were about as likely as the general population (29 percent) to own personal computers. They also use television and video and own TV and video equipment at similar rates to the general public.

• The percentage of people with disabilities who are out of the labor force is almost three times that of the general population who are out of the labor force.

This may be due in part to disabling conditions that increase with age. Some studies also have suggested the high figure may be due partly because neither unemployed job seekers with disabilities nor employers know about adaptive and accessible equipment, communication aids, environmental controls and other available means of work-site accommodation.

• Among employed individuals with functional limitations, the percentages who hold executive, managerial, professional and technical jobs are similar to the 23 percent found in the general workforce, although in many disability groups the actual figure is slightly higher.

Percentages Holding Top-Level Positions

• 20 percent with cognitive impairments
• 16 percent with speech and language disabilities
• 23 percent with mobility-related disabilities
• 23 percent with general population
• 24 percent with hearing loss
• 25 percent with impaired vision
• 26 percent with hand motion limitation work at the top levels of employment

Although companies would like to learn about lifestyle and product feature preferences of potential consumers with disabilities, the only relevant question asked by NCHS was whether the household had a telephone. Although this omission is disappointing, it is possible to draw some general conclusions about consumption patterns. Because successful phone use requires hearing, vision, cognition and manipulation-or accommodations for their impairment or loss-some inferences about the use of other consumer products can be made from the findings.

• As expected, about 95 percent of all households own phones, even those that include people who report trouble or inability using the phone. While 94 percent of all people living alone own phones, the number drops dramatically when the individual has difficulty using the phone. Only 86 percent of this group (presumably making purchasing decisions only for themselves) have phones.

One can infer that if telephones were easier to use, more people would have them and use them. One also could conclude that people with disabilities might consume more products with the same sensory and motor requirements- lifting, pressing buttons, listening, etc.- if those products were easier to use. These requirements may apply to the entire range of consumer electronics products.

Assistive Technologies

Other studies provide pertinent information about the market for assistive technologies.

• California has distributed free TTY's to about 25,000 people. An additional 30 percent (7,500) can be assumed to have purchased their own, feature-rich units. These estimates are made from the bottom up, based on a random sample of the entire population rather than top-down from advocacy organizations or others. Many believe the figures are low. Extrapolating the total to the U.S. population indicates there could be as many as 270,000 TTY users nationwide. Compare this number to the 10.9 million people who have difficulty hearing normal conversations or the .92 million who cannot hear them at all. Assuming that 20 percent of the former and all of the latter are unable to use the telephone effectively and independently, 3.1 million people could benefit from a TTY. Thus TTY penetration is between 3 and 9 percent. The implication for manufacturers may be that there is a large potential market for phones or data terminals with text, such as that already provided by cellular phones with paging functions. The more the technology can be built into the phone the more additional consumers there may be.

• Approximately 800,000 individuals use "talking books," tape recorded versions of printed books, out of a potential consumer population of 12.7 million individuals with difficulties seeing, using their hands, or with learning disabilities that hamper reading.

Resources

Inclusive Technologies can conduct additional research into the NCHS data as well as secondary research to answer additional specific questions. Information is available at phone/TTY: (732) 441-0831; Fax: (732) 441-0832, or email: info@inclusive.com.

Other suggested resources are as follows:

• Resource Guide for Accessible Design of Consumer Electronics ,
• Electronic Industries Foundation , 1996.
• Survey on People with Disabilities for the National Organization on Disability , Louis Harris and Associates, 1994.
• Who's Watching? A Profile of the Blind and Visually Impaired Audience for Television and Video , American Foundation for the Blind, 1997.