This project will be designing and building tools for users to create and edit their preferences. From a technological point of view, it may be sufficient to create a single editing tool for users, a bare form with all possible features and settings laid out with checkboxes, etc. But who would use such a tool? How would they find it? There is always the risk that the outputs of this project will reach only the most sophisticated and self-activated users, those who are well-connected to technological developments, and especially those who are already receiving and using effective accessible technology solutions.
If we could look backward from a successful large-scale implementation several years from now, we may be able to see 3 pathways by which a larger mass of users would have been able to enter the preferences environment; each path will have implications for our design.
Extensions of 'Clinical' Practice
Rather than expect the professionals closest to 'our' accessibility preferences domain to adopt an externally created tool, we should adapt our design to their currently popular tools and practices. These vary widely by domain; audiologists have very different tests, tools, and professional norms than special educators or occupational therapists, so our tools will have to be dimensionally flexible.
- Evaluation tools and protocols
- Outreach to practitioners
- Importing data from clinical tests
Extensions of Mainstream Technologies
Some mainstream technologies (as we are collecting in the Deliverable 1 spreadsheet) provide ways of adjusting the interface via permanent settings, and even point to assistive technology options external to the mainstream products themselves. Preference editors could bridge the gap between what the current product can do and what external assistive technologies could do.
- Operating systems
- Applications
- Games (e.g., reaction tests, puzzles, memory tests)
- Pervasive performance monitoring. This is an expanding domain, with many potential privacy pitfalls. In our context it could be useful, however, in facilitating greater independence while providing awareness to the user or others about performance deterioration that may indicate an approaching crisis.
Points of Tangency in Daily Living
Most people with disabilities do not have any connection to professionals such as special educators, therapists, or AT practitioners who might be concerned with their performance and convenience. But they encounter situations every day where they interact with technologies or with people who might be interested in their technological performance. These encounters can be engineered into an 'intake' experience (although obviously there are issues of privacy and annoyance if the bounds are overstepped). The intake experience can be limited to the needs of the moment, or it can be an onramp to a more complete
- Motor vehicle bureaus
- Family and social network interactions (informal and formal, such as large-scale family reunions)
- Home technology installations
- Workplace evaluation
- Educational institutions and their testing environments
- Voter registration
- Point-of-sale terminals
- Wireless and other electronics/ICT retail stores
- ATMs and online banking