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Re: Accessibility guidelines for information kiosks - summary

for

From: Oliver Burmeister
Date: Mar 20, 2002 9:25PM

Dear All.

Here is a summary of responses I received to the Kiosk part of my request
(original request copied below). Again, my sincere thanks to all
contributors.

> 2. This semester my Maters students do a major usability project
prototyping
> a new interface for a touch-screen information kiosk that has in recent
> times (since Oct last year) become popular with the public in Melbourne. I
> realise this list is meant to be reserved for discussing web accessibility
> issues, but I'm hoping this request with still within the realms of
> acceptability. Clearly there are guidelines for accessibility for web
> design, but what about the design of other products, such as information
> kiosks? This is not be a major component of the Masters project,
> but I would like to raise awareness of accessibility issues amongst my 49
students.

A good starting point is the Australian Anti-Discrimination Act and defining
what constitutes disability. Eg, though obviously it would be near
impossible for a blind person to touch the required point on a touch screen,
there are alternate solutions and other disabilities to think about.

An information kiosk is an example of what are usually referred to as Public
Access Terminals (PATs). There are accessibility guidelines covering PATs,
see the references below. Be aware that the PATs guidelines don't
necessarily encompass the service that is delivered through the PAT. They
mostly cover the physical interface - buttons, displays, etc. But the
content may be a Web site or PC application and these are covered by other
accessibility guidelines.

Many kiosks are simply PCs running Windows and shoved into a casing with
special controls. If this is the case, then application software
accessibility guidelines (which cover Windows applications) may also be
relevant. Other kiosks are PCs running a Web browser. The content is written
in HTML and is essentially a website. In this case, some of the Web
accessibility guidelines may be relevant.