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RE: Accessibility guidelines for information kiosks

for

From: Ben Caldwell
Date: Apr 5, 2002 8:43AM

(Am passing this to the list on behalf of Gregg Vanderheiden)


Thanks John,

Yes some of the work we do is patented by the University (under the
Baye-Dole act). And yes one of the main reasons (after having to
personally pay to get rid of other people patenting our early unpatented
work, and then not letting others use it ) is to ensure that it is
available to the public.

But most of our work is not patented.

And patents or licenses or whatever are only needed for people who are
selling things. Students don t need to worry about it unless they are
thinking of selling their work. Ordinary academic attribution is all
that the students need to concern themselves with. And yes as all
good students should -- they should see if they can do a better one.
Or improve it somehow. We d be interested in their results.

Oh and it is good to note that EZ isn't any one technique.
It is just what we call packages of techniques that together allow cross
disability access to products. A typical package for a touch screen
device might include:
- voice access techniques (for people who are blind, have low vision,
have trouble reading or cannot read),
- a few button (3 or 4) interface (for people with motor disabilities
and those who are blind who cannot use a touch screen),
- captioning of any audio and auditory description of video clips,
- a simple direct interface and language to facilitate access by people
with cognitive and language problems,
- and volume control and headphone jack if there is audio content for
people with hearing problems.

If there is significant data entry involved a keyboard or keypad is also
part of the package.

And when V2 comes out it could be included to allow AT access.

For different devices there would be different packages of techniques.
The trick is to get the greatest cross disability coverage as possible
with a small set of carefully selected and coordinated techniques.

Good luck

Gregg

-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Human Factors
Depts of Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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FAX 608/262-8848
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