Universal Design and Assistive Technology

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Universal Design and Assistive Technology

• Providing access and assistance to people with
  special needs.

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Motivations

• Legal Requirements
• Section 508 1973/1986 Rehabilitation Act
• 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act
• 1/5 Americans have a disability, 1/10 have a
  severe disability
• Everyone is impaired sometimes
• Intriguing interface challenges

2000 US Census Brief
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Universal Design

• Universal design is the design of products and
  environments to be usable by all people, to the
  greatest extent possible, without the need for
  adaptation or specialized design
• Variety of users
• Age, expertise, language, education, physical
  abilities, cognitive abilities
• Helps everyone, not just those with a disability.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design
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Universal design principles

• equitable use
• flexibility in use
• simple and intuitive to use
• perceptible information
• tolerance for error
• low physical effort
• size and space for approach and use

http//www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/univ_design/princ_o
verview.htm
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Example Multi-Modal Systems

• More than one sensory channel in interaction
• e.g. sounds, text, hypertext, animation, video,
  gestures, vision
• Provides flexibility in input
• Redundant output

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Accessible design

• Make accessible to as wide a group of people as
  possible, particularly those with disabilities
• Provide equal access
• Example Web accessibility
• Challenge
• Very hard to design a product for everyone
• Design for all vs. Design for most

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Users with disabilities

• visual impairment
• Blindness, low vision, color blindness
• hearing impairment
• Deafness, partial hearing loss
• physical impairment
• Difficulty or inability to use hands, such as
  tremors, loss of muscle control, or paralysis
• Cognitive
• Learning disabilities such as dyslexia, memory,
  attention, problem-solving impairments

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and different needs

• age groups
• older people e.g. disability aids, memory aids,
  communication tools to prevent social isolation
• children e.g. appropriate input/output devices,
  involvement in design process
• cultural differences
• influence of nationality, generation, gender,
  race, sexuality, class, religion, political
  persuasion etc. on interpretation of interface
  features
• e.g. interpretation and acceptability of
  language, cultural symbols, gesture and colour

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Were all disabled sometimes

• Environment
• Fatigue
• Injury
• Aging
• Changing role of information technology

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Example

• Sheila the programmer. She was diagnosed with
  muscular dystrophy in her early 20's. This
  condition, which results in progressive loss of
  muscular strength, means that she works from her
  motorized wheelchair, and is unable to sit
  upright for more than a brief time. As a result,
  she works in a reclined position, leaning back
  almost horizontally. Her vision problems limit
  the amount of time she can focus on the screen,
  and her muscular weakness prevents her from
  handling paper manuals.

http//www.sun.com/access/developers/updt.HCI.adva
nce.htmldesign
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Another example

• Carla the secretary. She has no vision in one
  eye and "tunnel vision" in the other and prepares
  documents using a standard PC and screen
  magnification software. Sometimes she is unable
  to tell the difference between old and new email
  messages, because her mail application uses color
  to distinguish old from new. Like many users with
  low vision, she has problems working with
  columns, because it is difficult for her to see
  if text is aligned.

http//www.sun.com/access/developers/updt.HCI.adva
nce.htmldesign
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Assistive Technology

• Any item, equipment or system, that is used to
  increase, maintain, or improve functional
  capabilities of a person with a disability
• Understand technology in order to design with it
  in mind
• Create new technology to aid users
• Examples http//www.enablemart.com/

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Vision

• Color blindness
• Low-vision
• The vast majority of visually disabled people
  have some sight
• Blindness

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Color blindness

• Remember 8 of population!
• Use good color contrast
• Color is not the only way of distinguishing
  information
• Check your pages with simulator
• Such as http//www.vischeck.com/index.php

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Myopia and Hypermetropia

• Myopia Hypermetropia
• (short-sighted) (far-sighted)

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Macular degeneration
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Diabetic retinopathy
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Cataracts
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Tunnel vision
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Accommodating Partial Sight

• Large monitor, high resolution, glare protection
• Control of color and contrast
• Control of font size everywhere
• Keyboard orientation aids

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Hardware or Software Magnification

• 2 to 16 times
• Virtual screen
• Viewport, control
• Notification of outside events
• CRTs for physical items
• Software
• Zoomtext
• MAGic

http//www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID4TopicID
31DocumentID1387
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Accommodating Blind Users

• Screen Readers
• Read GUI out loud
• Cursor-tracking, routing
• Dialogue focus
• View areas
• Braille display
• Braille embosser

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Design implications

• Text alternatives for non-text content
• Information and structure separate from
  presentation
• All functionality available via keyboard
• Make placement and functionality of content
  predictable

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Hearing

• Redundant output
• hardware (flashing title bar)
• software (text to speech)
• An increasing problem?
• Population
• Phone interfaces

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Assistive Technology

• Amplification systems
• TDD/TTYs
• Deaf relay centers
• Communication aids
• SMS most significant communication device for
  deaf recently
• Sign language translator
• Speech training

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Physical Impairments

• Complete lack of function
• absence of a limb
• paralysis
• Lack of strength
• Tremor/lack of accuracy
• Slowness

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Keyboard Modifications

• Keyguards
• Alternative layouts
• Reduce movement
• One-handed keyboards, possible chords
• Membrane surfaces (minimize required pressure)

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Software Modifications

• Sticky keys
• Slow keys or disable auto-repeat
• Modify keyboard mappings
• On-screen keyboards

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Alternative Input Devices

• Speech input
• Dictation versus control
• Switches
• Keyboard has approx 50 switches
• Scanning interfaces

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Mouse alternatives

• Trackball
• Proportional joystick
• Switched joystick or cursor keys
• Head sensor or mouth stick
• Eye-gaze
• Keyboard only

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Possible Switches

• Foot pedal
• Leaf switch highly sensitive
• Sip and puff
• Dual switch (can be used for Morse code)
• Joy stick
• Muscle switch
• Neural implant
• Eye gaze

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Scanning Interfaces
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Acceleration Techniques

• Control macros
• Word prediction
• Abbreviations

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On the horizon Brain-computer interfaces

• Sensing neural activity to control a device
• Communication for severely paralyzed
• Control prosthetic or paralyzed limb

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Impaired Mental Capabilities

• Memory
• Short or long term, recall and recognition
• Perception
• Attention, discriminating sensory input
• Problem Solving
• Recognizing the problem, implementing solutions
  and evaluation
• Concepts
• Generalizing, skill development
• Learning
• Autism

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Design Guidelines

• Input / Interface Control
• Change colors/contrast for easy reading
• Presentation Format
• blank space to focus attention
• turn off moving images
• Informational Content and Prompting
• match vocabulary level to user
• Infinite patience and risk-free environment

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Who are older people?

• People who have been alive for longer
• Thats about all they have in common

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Potential Declining Abilities

• Physical
• Sensory
• Cognition
• Retrospective memory
• Computing no longer limited to the workplace

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Assistive Uses

• Sensory aids
• Memory aids
• Mobile emergency alerts
• Information access
• ThirdAge (www.thirdage.com)
• Social communication
• SeniorNet (www.seniornet.com)

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Guideline summary
http//www.sun.com/access/developers/updt.HCI.adva
nce.htmldesign
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Sources for guidelines

• Web accessibility
• http//www.w3.org/WAI/
• http//www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID57TopicI
  D167
• www-306.ibm.com/able/guidelines/web/accessweb.html
  

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Take home points

• Think about universal design principles helps
  all users, not just disabled
• Technology can help provide access and control of
  computer
• Technology can also help people function better
  in everyday world
• Solutions include wide range of physical and
  software solutions
• Work with users!
• You cant understand what its like