Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
more usable interfaces. The same principle can be applied to the design of
accessible technology by involving disabled users in the design process. The
concept of
universal design
means designing interfaces in a way that they can
be used by the vast majority of people regardless of disability. For webpage
design this might mean making sure that the design is usable by a blind
person with a screen reader, without necessarily modifying its visual appear-
ance. Fortunately, there are standards for such designs in the web content
accessibility guidelines (WCAG) offered by the W3C [
6
].
It is doubtful that one interface can be truly universal, so another approach
to accessibility is to
design for user empowerment
,whichmeanstodesignto
enable people to solve their own accessibility problems whenever possible.
A simple example is found in modern screen readers where the user can
adjust the speed of the speech. Many blind people use a very high speed
which is incomprehensible to an average listener. In screen readers, a design
goal is not the most natural speech, but speech that can be understood at
a speed adjustable by the user. Designing for user empowerment is a non-
paternalistic approach to interface design. In a sense, it encompasses both
human centered design and universal design. It would be dicult to design
for user empowerment without involving users in the design cycle. Universal
design includes solutions that allow for easily set individual configurations;
for example, most computer keyboard trays have adjustable height.
The most powerful form of user empowerment is providing the education
and environment to people that will enable them to solve their own accessi-
bility problems. The famous adage, “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for
today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime,” applies to
accessible technology. The highest level of user empowerment is the inclusion
of people with disabilities as designers and creators of the technology.
3.5 New Directions in Accessible Technology
There are many new research directions in accessible technology that take
the non-paternalistic approach of the social model of disability, and in this
last section I will mention a few. The first is the SUPPLE++ project, which
automatically generates appropriate user interfaces for users with varying
motor and vision abilities [
4
]. The beauty of this system is how easy it is
for a user to configure the interface: A user can perform a few simple tasks,
which are recorded and analyzed to determine which interface would work
best for that person.
The second is WebAnywhere, an open source web-based screen reader [
2
].
WebAnywhere is a free screen reading web service that allows audio access
to the web from almost any computer, even those with highly circumscribed
capabilities such as those found in public places like libraries and internet
cafes. Because it is open source, contributors from around the world, disabled
