Curb cuts and building ramps were createdto give people in wheelchairs access to sidewalks and offices.

        Almost immediately, however, the advantages of ramps and curb cuts were welcomed by those pushing strollers or shopping carts, cyclists, skateboarders, skaters or people whose joints felt better with the ease of a sloping surface than with the harder impact of stepping up and down.

        Steve Jacobs, accessibility program manager with NCR in Dayton, puts it this way: “Sidewalks with curb cuts are simply better sidewalks.”

        The same principle applies to many aspects of our environment — automatic doors, lowered drinking fountains, louder pay phones. Taken for granted as useful to everyone, these were things developed for people physically unable to open a heavy door, reach a high fountainor hear at lower volumes.

        The telephone, the communications instrument that changed America, was invented by Alexander Graham Bell to help the deaf.

        The first long-playing record machine, the Readophone, was adopted in 1934 by the Library of Congress Books for the Blind Project, recording 2 hours and 20 minutes, 28,000 spoken words, of literature on a single disc. Today, books on tape, first used by the blind, are sold to busy commuters, executives and homemakers everywhere who relish the multitasking abilities they afford.

        Picture-based keyboards, first introduced in the 1960s to provide a means of communication for people unable to use their own voices for speech, are now ubiquitous in fast food restaurants or other point-of-sale applications, expediting transactions and providing jobs to individuals whose limitations might have rendered them unemployable 10 to 20 years ago.

        When entrepreneur Deane Blazie developed the Braille 'n Speak in 1987, it was a handheld device with a six-key Braille keyboard, speech output, a simple word processor, calendar, calculator and other features. Essentially, he gave blind people a forerunner of the Palm Pilot.

        The origins of such technological staples as public address systems, text messaging and even the Internet itself can be traced to innovative accommodations to people with disabilities. This phenomenon is the basis for a growing awareness among engineers, architects and product developers of the significance of universal design in our physical and electronic environments.

        E-mail dkkendrick@earthlink.net. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/kendrick

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