Access on Main Street

TechCrunch–probably not the first blog to do so–is predicting the end of keyboards/mice in favor of exclusively touchscreen interfaces. For now, this would create not only accessibility problems but also issues for other folks, including touch typists. We’ll recall past predictions for the universality of the Dvorak keyboard and speech recognition technology, and just not hold our breath.

TechCrunch: Touching: All Rumors Point To The End Of Keys/Buttons

We’ve been chewing over this article about Anthony Dunne (who is also cited in Graham Pullin’s design meets disability), a designer who believes that usability is better served by playing to, rather than minimizing, standard human reactions such as anxiety and discomfort. On one hand, we can see this approach benefiting the accessibility cause, particularly if standard associations of disability/aging as solely negative traits can be modified. (Eyeglasses, after all, started out as assistive technology and turned into both fashion statements and a sign of intelligence.) On the other, though, there may be a significant difference between the reactions of an individual with “standard” responses, and those with emotional/cognitive disabilities at either end of the curve–e.g., if an anxiety-producing component is deliberately built into a product design, people with depression or other conditions that cause a flat affect may not respond, potentially rendering the product as useless to them as an uncaptioned video would be to a Deaf person.

Usability News: HCI 09: “Do you want to replace the existing normal?”

We’ve maintained for years that universal design is unfortunately also represented by constructions that are inaccessible to as many individuals as possible. Case in point: commercial sites that deliberately draw the attention of your eyes and/or your assistive technology to links where they want you to go, such as a place to buy an upgrade rather than download a freebie. The article cited below points out how this complicates navigation for everyone, not just people with print disabilities.

SearchEngineLand: The Dark Side Of Usability: When Business Goals & User Goals Collide

Deaf folks used to get pretty much a free pass through the Internet, since there was minimal sound-only content. This changed with innovations such as podcasts. Now audio has become ubiquitous enough that people are starting to look at recommending techniques for indexing and navigating information for a modality that is presented in a strictly linear fashion. We haven’t yet been able to access the full article, but we’re curious to know whether these techniques will involve any speech-to-text conversion, and whether this text can be exposed at least for Deaf individuals and anyone who benefits from simultaneous audio and visual presentation.

Usability News: Can You Hear Me Now?

We’ve barely started reading Graham Pullin’s new book design meets disability, but we’re already intrigued by his concept of resonant design, the thought that some products can be designed for a consumer group that includes subsets of people both with and without disabilities. As an example, he cites watches that communicate the time via vibration when the wrist is rotated; the design impetus is discretion rather than access. It’s equally useful to time-checkers who are blind and don’t want to use a tactile watch (or who can’t–diabetes, a leading cause of adult-onset blindness, can also affect fingertip sensitivity), and to sighted junior execs who can’t afford to look bored in a meeting. The book itself is a design pleasure, filled with pictures of products showing the varied and sometimes startling interactions between accommodation and aesthetics. Definitely recommended.

design meets disability

Interesting NYT article about our sense of touch, both how it’s accurate and how easily it can be fooled. One paragraph in particular caught our attention: “When people are given a raised line drawing of a common object, a bas-relief outline of, say, a screwdriver, they’re stumped. ‘If all we’ve got is contour information,” Dr. Lederman said, “no weight, no texture, no thermal information, well, we’re very, very bad with that.’” We’re wondering if this is equally true for blind people, especially those who are congenitally blind. If you’re more reliant than sighted users on contour information–e.g., on maps or classroom materials–does it become more useful? And what are the implications for designers who assume that simply making something tactile makes it accessible?

New York Times: Primal, Acute and Easily Duped: Our Sense of Touch

Now here’s another gesture interface prototype we’re itching to try.  Chris Harrison mounts a simple microphone on any surface — wall, desk, pants pocket, then scratches letters or patterns on that surface to control a computer or mp3 player.  Sound carries so well in solids that the audio pattern can be picked up far from the mic, and a two-stroke pattern like the letter ‘V’ is easily distinguishable from a circular one like the letter ‘O’.  Chris has in mind using your cell phone’s microphone as the pickup, so any horizontal surface becomes a gesture input device once you put your phone down on it.

Gesture interfaces seem to be falling into 2 categories: 2D, requiring contact like this prototype or a touch-sensitive panel (like Microsoft’s Surface), and 3D, like the camera-based systems we’ve also featured.  Their main advantages over last-generation touchscreens is that they don’t need to have a specific target area — you can perform the gesture anywhere in their range — and they can detect complex movements and multiple touches at once, like a chorded keyboard, increasing the encoding capability.  These two improvements work better for blind and low vision users, but gesture complexity may foil some users with impaired dexterity.

Chris Harrison – Scratch Input