Week 3: Designing for AX

This week we delved further into the topic of universal usability by looking at accessibility for impaired users. I didn't realise but commercial websites actually have to be made accessible for the disabled in certain ways by law. But even with legal issues aside I think it’s fair to say we have a moral obligation to help the disabled work with technology. Moreover with the rising aging population the issue of accessibility will become ever more important in the future since we are all likely to want to make use of it when we are older. However the issue was raised in class that this may not be the case if in the future bioengineering and nanotechnology provide solutions to people's impairments, so that they can use the same technology as normal users. But since it may be quite some time for such advances in technology to become realised, accessibility will certainly be important for a while. Furthermore designing interactive products with universible accessibility in mind usually makes them more usable for everyone (not just the disabled), and can make greater profits for companies making interactive products.

 

George, who gave the presentation this week, showed us a video example with a blind man using a screen reader to help him use his PC. The speed at which he could crank the voice up to and still understand was incredible! This is far faster than I can read text visually. I would hypothesise that this may be due to the speed of language encoding in the auditory system compared to the visual system (after all we do communicate predominately through spoken word). One thing that blind people have trouble interacting with computers is their location on the screen. The speech screen readers give no clue as to spatial location. It seems to me that the best way to do this is by using haptic devices, either as a pad the user can touch with their hands, or somehow attached to the user (on the back or tongue) so that tactic sensations can be administered where appropriate and the user can build a spatial mental map of the screen. I have no doubt we will see some very interesting solutions to accessibility in the near and distant future.

 

I also looked at two papers in some detail Allen et al (2008), which showed how domain experts are involved in designing assisted technology, and Newell et al (2007), which showed how to use older people in the design process. I found the Newell paper more interesting. Older people require different methods for collecting data, including more social events and the use of trained actors in some cases to increase involvement.