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| Accessible Design: Problems and Solutions A Literature Review to Support the ITTATC Needs Assessment |
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Go forward to Section 2: Literature Review Results 
Print this page. Section 1: Introduction
Over 54 million Americans experience some form of disability (McNeil, 1997). In addition, most Americans will experience a temporary disability at some point in their lives, due to illness, accident, or circumstance. Since anyone can experience a disability and people with disabilities represent nearly 20% of the U.S. population (McNeil, 1997), it becomes apparent that the community of people with disabilities has the same information access needs as the general population. The community of people with disabilities is a significant part of the general population. Unfortunately, there is a large divide between people without disabilities in the general population and people with disabilities, regarding access to technology and information. Further, this access divide has a marked negative impact on the financial and social well being of people with disabilities (Kaye, 1998, 2000).
A pervasive lack of accessible information technology and telecommunications equipment in today’s marketplace serves to perpetuate this divide, particularly as technology advances without the inclusion of people with disabilities in its conceptualization and design. However, the access divide between people with and without disabilities can be removed by the consistent practice of accessible design. Accessibly designed products would not only make it possible for people with disabilities to participate in the economic opportunity and social activities that people without disabilities enjoy, but such products would also improve the efficiency with which technology is used by people without disabilities.
Accessible design, sometimes referred to as universal design or design-for-all, is defined by Vanderheiden (1997) of the Trace Center as “the practice of designing products or environments that can be effectively and efficiently used by people with a wide range of abilities operating in a wide range of situations”. Accessible design is not, as some people have feared, the impossible practice of designing products that can be used by everyone in all conditions. Rather, an accessibly designed product is simply the result of a design practice that has as its foundation an in-depth understanding of a broadly defined user population.
The benefits of accessible design seem clear. People with disabilities benefit from accessible design through access to equipment and services that were once difficult to obtain or impossible to use. By broadening its target markets to include people with disabilities and enhancing the general usability of consumer products, industry benefits from accessible design through increased market share. The government benefits from the diffusion of accessible products because such products permit a workforce that is more diverse and efficient. Finally, consumers enjoy the benefits of accessibly designed products through the increased availability of well-designed, easy-to-use technology.
While some technological hurdles must still be overcome, several input and display technologies that can aid in the design of accessible products are available today. For example, over the past 10 years the technology to integrate limited vocabulary speech displays into mainstream products has become inexpensive and readily available. It is difficult to find even a children’s toy today that doesn’t request the simple press of a button to hear a pre-recorded message. This same technology can be used to assist people with visual impairments in navigating complex menu structures that normally require visual interaction, such as those found on automatic teller machines. In addition, advances in non-speech auditory displays have made it possible to augment visual information (such as that presented on a computer screen) with auditory cues, thus making World Wide Web navigation easier for people with visual impairments. Advances in gesture recognition research sustain hopes that, in the future, computer recognition of complex gestures, such as sign language, will become commonplace in everyday interactions with technology.
Recent government regulations, such as Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998), have been enacted in order to promote the design and manufacture of accessible electronic and information technology (E&IT) products. Section 255 mandates that manufacturers of telecommunications equipment make strong attempts to ensure accessibility to all, when readily achievable. Section 508 requires that certain equipment purchased by the Federal Government be designed with accessibility in mind. It is expected that these new regulations will bring the concept of accessibility to the forefront of the design community.
The primary barrier to the implementation of accessible design principles in industry is a lack of understanding regarding the goals of accessible design and the misperception that accessible design is overly time consuming and cost prohibitive. In addition, there is a lack of specification in the literature defining what makes a product accessible. Given the current ambiguity in the literature regarding the practical application and evaluation of accessible design, it is understandable why some companies are reluctant to invest the necessary resources to develop accessible products. Simply raising awareness about accessible design would go a long way toward promoting the design of accessible products. Beyond that, promoters of accessible design must find ways of influencing the design process such that products and services are designed from the very beginning with accessibility in mind.
User-centered design (UCD) is the practice of proactively considering the information requirements of the end users throughout the design process. UCD is based on an iterative cycle of analysis, design, and evaluation. At each stage in the design process, designers work closely with users to ensure that the resultant product is usable in an efficient manner. UCD has proven to be an effective design process on both highly complex interfaces, such as aircraft cockpits, and simpler products, such as VCRs and cell phones. One possible method of promoting the design of more accessible products is to modify a proven design process, such as the UCD process, to accommodate a more broadly defined population of users. Practitioners of user-centered design could be taught to design more accessible products by introducing them to the needs and limitations of a more diverse user-base than is currently being considered. In addition, training designed to facilitate the necessary interaction between designers and the community of people with disabilities in all stages of design will prove to be immensely valuable.
Training is the key to success in influencing the way products are currently being designed. The primary purpose of the Information Technology Technical Assistance and Training Center (ITTATC) is to provide information and training materials that would assist in the development of information technology and telecommunications equipment that is accessible to people with disabilities. In order to develop and implement training materials and instructional modules for accessible design, a formal needs assessment is being conducted. This needs assessment will document the extent of the problems with accessibility in the information technology and telecommunications industries and provide an understanding of what project stakeholders perceive as possible solutions.
There are four major components of the needs assessment: a literature review, a structured interview of visionaries, focus groups, and surveys. Each component of the needs assessment will be documented separately in draft form and then integrated into the final needs assessment report. The first component of the needs assessment, the literature review, will provide an understanding of the problem space, as it is understood today. The primary goal of the literature review is an understanding of the major issues in accessible design as well as documentation of proposed and attempted solutions to particular problems related to accessible design. A secondary goal of the literature review is to provide information to the curriculum developer that would be useful in the development of training materials. This report documents the literature review portion of the needs assessment for the ITTATC.
A list of relevant topics was created in order to organize the literature review. Each topic area was further subdivided into a list of questions. The complete list of topics and associated questions is presented below:
Table 1: List of Literature Review Topic Areas and Associated Questions.
A. Assistive Technologies
A-1. What is the state-of-the-art of speech-based/natural language technologies?B. Assessment Methodologies
A-2. What is the state-of-the-art of auditory information displays?
A-3. What is the state-of-the-art of haptic interfaces?
A-4. What is the state-of-the-art of gesture recognition technologies?
A-5. What is the state-of-the-art of interactive communication limited vocabulary dialogues?
B-1. How do we determine when the requirements have been met?C. Benefits of Accessible Design
B-2. How do we determine if a product is truly accessible?
C-1. How does industry benefit?D. Definition of Accessible Design
C-2. How does government benefit?
C-3. How do individuals with disabilities benefit?
C-4. How do individuals without disabilities benefit?
D-1. What is the definition of Universal Design? Design-for-all? Every Citizen Interfaces (ECI)?E. Definition of User Population served by the Accessible Design Community
D-2. What is the scope of Accessible Design?
D-3. What are the perceptions of the field of Accessible Design?
D-4. What experiences have other countries had with Accessible Design?
E-1. What types of impairments do consumers with disabilities face?F. Examples of Products
F-1. What are the existing attempts to develop products in the spirit of Accessible Design?G. Government Regulations
F-2. What are the perceived strengths and weaknesses of accessible products?
G-1. What is required by Section 255?H. Organizational Behavior
G-2. What is required by Section 508?
G-3. Which industries are most affected by Section 255/508?
G-4. What are the current interpretations of government regulations?
G-5. What is the current compliance approach?
G-6. What is the government’s position on enforcement of the current regulations?
H-1. What are the current barriers?I. Principles/Guidelines of Accessible Design
H-2. What aspects of organizational behavior will facilitate the adoption of Accessible Design principles?
H-3. How will the organization climate create or sustain barriers to the adoption of Accessible Design principles?
I-1. What Principles/Guidelines have been identified in the area of Accessible Design?J. Requirements of the User Population served by the Accessible Design Community
J-1. What are the information needs of users with disabilities?K. Training Methods and Materials
K-1. Who are the consumers of training?L. Accessible Design Processes and Resources
K-2. What are the training techniques that could be used to teach the required material?
K-3. What types of training material is currently being used to teach Accessible Design?
K-4. What qualifications/skills does the trainer need in order to adequately teach Accessible Design?
L-1. What are the current design processes?M. User-centered Design
L-2. What changes are required to the current design processes as a result of 255/508?
L-3. What are the barriers to implementing the changes to the design processes?
L-4. What tools are available to designers?
L-5. What resources are available to support Accessible Design?
M-1. What are the current best practices in user-centered design?
M-2. What user-centered design tools are available to designers?
M-3. What is the state-of-the-art in analysis of information requirements and user needs?
M-4. What is the state-of-the-art in rapid prototyping and iterative design?
M-5. What is the current thinking in the field of error analysis?
M-6. What is the state-of-the-art in human performance testing and evaluation?
M-7. What is the current thinking in the field of usability testing and evaluation?
The literature was reviewed by conducting searches of the World Wide Web and publications databases (e.g., PsychInfo). Relevant materials from scholarly journals, technical reports, news articles, prepared statements, and unpublished manuscripts were read and summarized in an annotated bibliography in which individual items were listed alphabetically and cross-referenced according to topic area. The focus of the literature review was on the most recent advances in the field of accessibility. The bibliography was then cross-referenced against the topics and questions listed in Table 1. In addition, an annotated list of web site resources was created for later reference. The results of this effort are documented in the remaining sections of this report.
Section 2 provides a description of the literature review findings. Section 3 is an annotated bibliography where a summary of each article that was reviewed is provided. As part of this literature review, a number of web sites pertaining to accessible design and the community of people with disabilities was reviewed. Section 4 contains a list of relevant web sites and a brief description of what each site has to offer.
Go back to Table of Contents Go forward to Section 2: Literature Review Results