When a university mandates a piece of software, it becomes part of the curriculum – as embedded in the learning experience as the lecture theatre or the library.
But unlike physical spaces, which are now routinely assessed for accessibility before students arrive, software is often procured and rolled out with little or no consideration of whether it works for students with disabilities.
SPSS is the clearest current example of what happens when it doesn’t.
A widely used statistical package across psychology, social sciences, nursing, education, and public health, it’s often the go-to tool for learning research methods and completing dissertations. It’s also, for blind and partially sighted users, frequently impossible to use.
In many cases it’s effectively defunct alongside assistive technology such as screen readers and magnification.
I have been using SPSS since 2013, and it’s not developed towards accessibility at all. Even while hodgepodge and struggling through, the worst part is navigating any outputs. Keyboard navigating isn’t bad, but most of the time your first output is wrong in one way or another, and it can run away with you.” Blind and Partially Sighted Student
These are long-standing accessibility barriers, and IBM – owners of the software – has left them unaddressed.
IBM’s Accessibility Compliance Statement promotes sensible approaches to accessibility, but given the experiences of users, we’re unconvinced about how seriously this is taken.
A silent barrier in the tech lab
Thomas Pocklington Trust’s (TPT) new report SPSS: access denied for blind and partially sighted users gives voice to students and academic staff who have continued to report that the software doesn’t work reliably with screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, or VoiceOver.
Menus are inconsistently labelled, dialog boxes fail to read correctly, focus jumps unpredictably, and the screen reader can become completely silent mid-task.
Magnification users experience a different but equally frustrating set of barriers. Interface elements are densely packed, critical windows open outside the visible field, and resizing often breaks layout – resulting in tasks taking hours, or proving impossible to complete at all.
“I use Supernova speech and magnification because I have a little bit of limited vision, but I can’t use it all the time as it would be too tiring. When I came to use SPSS there were issues, I had numerous crashes, Dolphin Supernova crashing with SPSS which of course slowed things down immensely and made things very time consuming.” Maya, Blind and Partially Sighted Student
For many students, the impact isn’t just technical but emotional. Being unable to follow along in a statistics lab, having to ask for constant human support, or abandoning the task entirely – all of this damages confidence and reinforces a sense of exclusion within academic spaces.
Students have been unable to complete mandatory modules, forced to make course choices shaped by the software’s inaccessibility, and in some cases have avoided enrolling on certain courses altogether.
I lost more of my sight part way through my degree and as a result I purchased a MacBook which was easier to use, but I had found it so time consuming to use that I steered away from using it for my dissertation and stuck to only qualitative data collection methods. I can’t help but think that maybe my dissertation would have been strengthened by using quantitative data, but I felt like that was not an option for me as I needed it to be as simple as possible, and I wasn’t even sure I would be able to finish my degree due to deteriorating vision and requiring surgery. I was already forced to push back deadlines that I did not want to overcomplicate things further by trying to use SPSS.” Chloe, Blind and Partially Sighted Student
Claims versus reality
IBM’s documentation on assistive technology software suggests that SPSS can be configured for use with assistive technologies, with references to JAWS dictionaries and keyboard navigation.
In practice, students and staff report that these configurations are either unreliable, insufficient for independent use, or simply not known about. Compatibility varies between versions, screen readers, operating systems, and even individual machines.
The proposed instructions to make SPSS accessible through the JAWS screen reader on Windows are unintuitive and will require students to seek assistance in following the steps. The provided accessibility instructions are convoluted – requiring a level of creative thinking to correctly follow all instructions. This is compounded by these instructions likely being targeted at older versions of Windows, making it more difficult to follow on newer releases.” Education Technology Coordinator, TPT
Students using JAWS can sometimes achieve partial access after extensive configuration. Those using Macs with VoiceOver often find support even more limited. Few higher education providers appear to be aware of the adjustments available, or to have contacted IBM directly for assistance in finding solutions.
The additional anxiety of trying to find alternative means of accessing SPSS represents an unnecessary burden on top of the challenges already faced by students with a vision impairment – particularly given that many of these statistical modules are mandatory and can affect final grades. Is it reasonable for a student to jump through this many hoops to access a piece of software?
IBM has publicly stated a long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, hired its first disabled employee in 1914, and promotes accessible technology globally through its Product Accessibility Reports. That commitment looks harder to defend when it hasn’t been applied to SPSS.
This raises serious questions about IBM’s accountability and its ethical and legal responsibility to make its technologies accessible. We continue to call on IBM to find remedies to these long-standing barriers.
Are providers asking the right questions?
There’s an uncomfortable but necessary question here – are providers assuming SPSS is accessible because IBM claims it is, with no further scrutiny during the procurement process?
Higher education providers need to assess the accessibility and usability of any statistical software with assistive technology before procurement. Doing so would mean students with a vision impairment aren’t excluded from mandatory modules before they’ve even begun.
Reasonable adjustments don’t stop at lecture notes and exam formats. Software is part of the curriculum, and therefore part of higher education’s legal and ethical responsibility.
Providers should be asking whether they’ve tested SPSS with the assistive technologies their blind and partially sighted students use, whether they’ve documented which configurations work and which don’t, whether they’ve contacted IBM directly to raise accessibility failures, and whether they offer accessible alternative tools when SPSS isn’t usable.
What action looks like
While SPSS remains inaccessible, higher education providers can still take action. Disability services, faculties, and IT departments should formally raise accessibility failures with IBM – who need to hear directly from institutions, not just individual students.
Statistical packages such as R, RStudio, JASP, or Python-based tools may be more compatible with assistive technologies and should be offered as alternatives. If a student can’t use SPSS independently, assessment methods must change – requiring inaccessible software as a core learning outcome isn’t a reasonable adjustment.
And software should be tested with screen readers and magnifiers before being rolled out to cohorts, not after students start struggling.
TPT’s role
TPT has been at the forefront of highlighting SPSS accessibility failures. Through research, student testimony, and engagement with IBM, we’ve consistently challenged the assumption that this statistical software is inherently accessible.
We continue to work with students, providers, and professional networks to raise awareness, document lived experience, and push for change. IBM needs to take responsibility for the software and accountability for its failures.
From that commitment, we’ve launched a SPSS Community Group – a space to share experiences, ask questions, offer tips, and collaborate on improving accessibility of SPSS for blind and partially sighted users. If you’re a student or academic staff member struggling to use the software, it’s the place for you.
What you can do
Digital exclusion in higher education is rarely intentional, but it’s no less damaging than denying any other kind of reasonable adjustment. Providers must move beyond assumptions and start actively questioning whether the tools they mandate are truly usable by all students – testing software, engaging vendors, offering alternatives, and listening to students with a vision impairment.
Accessibility isn’t an optional enhancement. It’s a condition of equal participation in education. SPSS is the example in front of us – but the question it raises, whether higher education providers know if the tools they mandate actually work for all their students, applies to every piece of software on every course across the sector.
For more information on our work on SPSS, visit SPSS Homepage | TPT, or email us at educationpolicy@pocklington.org.uk
Even with these concerns aside, universities need to move away from SPSS.
Unis need to prepare students for the workplace of the future. SPSS isn’t even used in the workplace of the present or recent past!
I do agree that universities should move away from SPSS although it is still widely used in some academic disciplines (psychology for example) which is also a workplace!
From experience, one of the biggest problems in trying to get courses to switch to other software is that none of the teaching staff know how to use anything else and don’t have the time (or inclination) to learn!