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Re: Design Principles for Cognitive Disabilities

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From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Nov 3, 2006 3:30AM

Hi Paul/Jared,

This is really very interesting work, so well done. You are helping to
provide understandable guidelines
for developers who really may not have the ability (through no fault of
their own) to serve users with cognitive disabilities.

> 2. I dropped "intellectual confidence", because I think I've decided
> that a lack of confidence is more of a psychological/emotional trait,
> not necessarily caused by a disability, though there may be a
> correlation.

I think that there is definitely a connection. I would even suggest that
a lack of "intellectual confidence" can be very much
disabling in itself. Where it lies within the spectrum of psychological
or autistic spectrum disorders is a grey area.
For example, a friendly warm user interface (in terms of how it would
appear to a user with an sensory disability) may be far
more approachable that a colder (in terms of colour layout and overall
feel) more corporate visual style.

Could approaches like this be used to enhance "intellectual confidence"
for the end user?.
Could intellectual confidence be therefore enhanced by attention to
greater overall usability within a web application?
Would the motivation of a user and their desire to use the application
be increase by an improvement in overall usability?

The answer to the first two questions, I would suggest, is maybe, but
the third is definitely yes and would enhance the experience for everybody.

Again I think there is a connection, and you have made an excellent
point when you said:

>> 1. There is a large overlap between the principles of general
>> usability and cognitive accessibility.

How you would measure the connection between an improvement in usability
and an enhanced user experience for a user
with an intellectual disability, is something I cannot answer, but
observational evidence gathered from user tests might
provide the answer.

Good work Paul.

Best Regards

Josh




Paul R. Bohman wrote:
> Related to my previous posts, I've drafted a set of *design
> principles* for cognitive disabilities. This list is different from
> the list of functional cognitive disabilities in that the design
> principles are more rule-like or guideline-like, and their intended
> audience is web developers. I'm sure this list will also undergo
> changes over time. You'll notice that I've addressed the issue of
> motivation, which was brought up in a couple of the posts previously,
> with the "engagement" principle (see below). I felt that a
> principle-based list was an appropriate place to address that issue,
> whereas a list of the disability types themselves was probably not.
>
> As I read through my own list, I'm becoming more convinced of two
> (somewhat contradictory) things:
> 1. There is a large overlap between the principles of general
> usability and cognitive accessibility.
> 2. Designing for cognitive disabilities is a specialized area that
> general usability experts or web accessibility experts probably are
> not qualified to design for, and may never be.
>
> The first point above is encouraging. The second point is
> discouraging, in that it means that making content accessible to the
> blind or deaf or to those with motor disabilities really is vastly
> different than making content accessible to people with cognitive
> disabilities. Content designed for people with cognitive disabilities
> simply won't be the same or look the same as content designed for the
> rest of the population -- especially when you take into account the
> principle of developmental appropriateness. Still, for minor cognitive
> disabilities, there is still enough overlap with general usability
> principles to make the concept of universal design a worthy, if
> unachievable, goal. We just have to put an asterisk after the word
> "universal" and admit that we really mean "mostly universal".
>
> Here's my list:
>
>
> 1. SIMPLICITY
> Create a sparse, clean design; Eliminate distracters; Limit the number
> of options or choices; Limit or eliminate complex ideas
>
> 2. CLARITY
> Use direct, unambiguous language; Make the purpose of the content
> obvious; Make the interface intuitive
>
> 3. BREVITY
> Limited the amount of content; Limit the number of procedural steps
> the user must go through; Break longer pieces of content into smaller
> chunks
>
> 4. CONSISTENCY
> Keep the interface, design, and interactive controls as predictable as possible
>
> 5. FAMILIARITY
> Ground the design in the user's frame of reference, such as that
> person's past experiences, knowledge set, etc.
>
> 6. ENGAGEMENT
> Attract and focus the interest and attention of the user; Perhaps
> introduce game-like elements
>
> 7. GUIDANCE
> Include cues, help, and prompts that assist the user to understand the
> content or perform the task at hand
>
> 8. AUTOMATION
> Reduce or eliminate the need to initiate or manually perform any
> procedures; Reduce or eliminate the need for reasoning or calculation
> logic
>
> 9. AUDIOVISUAL REPRESENTATION
> Keep text to a minimum; supplement or replace text with graphics,
> illustrations, icons, audio, and/or video formats
>
> 10. DEVELOPMENTAL APPROPRIATENESS
> Regardless of the age of the user, make references to ideas and items
> that matches the user's developmental abilities and maturities, which
> may mean incorporating child-like elements
>
> 11. DIGITAL TRANSFORMABILITY
> Build in the ability to alter such things as font, background color,
> etc (this may include the construction of custom widgets, but may also
> include compatibility with user agents which already have such
> capabilities); Allow for text to speech conversion (e.g. screen
> readers)
>


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