Thread Subject: Re: about the word usable

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From: Jim Tobias
Date: Tue, Feb 13 2007 1:55 PM

I may agree that you *can* collapse categories without losing
items, but that's not the point. The point of having all five
is that they are separate functions, and we lose the educational
value if we over-collapse categories. It becomes too abstract,
and new folks entering the domain don't have a good handle to
grasp.

***
Jim Tobias
Inclusive Technologies
+1.732.441.0831 v/tty
+1.908.907.2387 mobile
skype jimtobias

-----Original Message-----
From: Gregg Vanderheiden [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 2:31 PM
To: 'TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee'
Subject: Re: [teitac-general] about the word usable

Hi Jim,

I did a chapter from a couple years ago that used

Perceive
Orient and Navigate
Operate
Understand

Which is much like your

Orientation: discovering what the product does and how it works
Navigation: finding the proper path to the intended function
Operation: manipulating the product's controls
Perception: receiving content and status information
Comprehension: integrating and using the information


Later I collapsed this into

Perceive
Operate
Understand

I found that items that would go into orient were also either perception or
understanding issues and navigation was part of operation or else was
orient.

I used these three in our new on-line tool we are working on. And the User
Needs from that tool is what I gave to SWG and that is now the SWG User
Needs doc.


IN WCAG we use

Perceive
Operate
Understand

As well.


Those are the only places I know of that use that approach to categorizing.
I was thinking of suggesting it here but people seemed to want to look at
product characteristic rather than user need so I didn't pursue it. Would
be happy to show what that might look like too. I have lots of material
arranged in that order.



Gregg
-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Jim
> Tobias
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 10:09 AM
> To: 'TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee'
> Subject: Re: [teitac-general] about the word usable
>
> This is very interesting.
>
> I have been looking at another dimension of categorizing accessibility
> standards, and obviously usability factors in exactly as you describe.
>
> Here's what I have so far, based on looking at the existing
> 255 and 508
> standards:
>
> Orientation: discovering what the product does and how it works
> Navigation: finding the proper path to the intended function
> Operation: manipulating the product's controls
> Perception: receiving content and status information
> Comprehension: integrating and using the information
>
> But something tells me that somewhere, someone more authoritative has
> already done this. Whitney (and anyone else), are you aware of a
> "Standard work" on the subject of categorizing the specific parts of
> using a product to accomplish a function?
>
> ***
> Jim Tobias
> Inclusive Technologies
> +1.732.441.0831 v/tty
> +1.908.907.2387 mobile
> skype jimtobias
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Whitney Quesenbery [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 10:40 AM
> To: TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee
> Subject: Re: [teitac-general] about the word usable
>
> Hajime,
>
> Thank you for the explanation - I completely agree with you:
> usability and accessibility are related, but different.
>
> A slight digression from the topic of structure, but just to follow up
> on the relationship:
>
> In thinking about cognitive disabilities, the line between "usability
> for all" and "access for people with specific disabilities" becomes
> quite blurry. In the voting system standards (VVSG) for example, we
> created a group of requirements around clear language, perception and
> understandable navigation -- but put them in the general usability
> section. We did this because they applied to all voters, not just
> those with cognitive disabilities. These requirements are very
> difficult to draft in a testable manner, however. It's easier when the
> standard is for a specific type of product, of course.
>
> Whitney
>
>
>
> At 10:24 AM 1/31/2007, Yamada@TOYO-UNIV wrote:
>
> >Whitney,
> >
> >For example, a website which only contains texts is "accessible" by
> >everyone. However, if the structure of the website is not the one
> >ordinary people expect, or if the texts include a lot of
> jargons that
> >are difficult to understand by ordinary people, we feel the
> website is
> >not "usable" or "easy to use."
> >
> >In Japan, ordinary people use the word "bike" to express the motored
> >two-wheel vehicle (Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki's.) But the government
> >officials use "light weight motored vehicle" instead of
> "bike," because
> >"light weight motored vehicle" is the word used in the
> related legislation.
> >Therefore, many people face difficulty in getting information from
> >governmental website when they want to know how to register
> "bike." In
> >this case, the website itself is "accessible" but not "usable."
> >
> >I found the word "usable" in your proposal. Thus I made the comment.
> >But
> now
> >I know you changed the word in your proposal. Thank you for the
> >modification.
> >
> >Hajime Yamada
> >
> >
> >

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