November 16-17, 2000, Arlington, VA, USA
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CUU 2000 > Proceedings
November 16-17, 2000, Arlington, VA, USA Proceedings: Conference Report |
This conference report is a compilation of the "live Updates" written by the Student Fellows during the conference.
Burks' address focused on the importance of raising the awareness of the economic advantages of using universal design principles. While legislators, the technical community, and the general public think that we can't afford to implement universal accessibility, Burks argued that we can't afford not to. He noted that economic returns increase as user communities grow. Burks indicated that -- contrary to popular opinion -- awareness, not acceptance, of universal design principles is the biggest barrier to their implementation. There is a need to disseminate information on the benefits of the design and production of products that meet universal design principles. To meet this need, Burks proposes:
Burks suggests that taking steps to employ universal design principals can help bridge the digital divide by making technology more accessible to a broader audience.
The FirstSearch User Interface Architecture:
Universal Access for any User, in many Languages, on any Platform
Gary Perlman
Gary presented OCLC FirstSearch service which enables users to
search for bibliographic content in over 80 online databases. This
Web based service was designed to accommodate different levels of
expertise, to run on multiple platforms and on different browsers, and to support
multiple languages. They created language-specific content files, and style files
for different browser versions, and combined them to dynamically produce the appropriate
page reading the information from multiple language tables.
Because of this, it was very easy to make changes and to introduce support for new
usability requirements.
Configuration Agents, Control and Privacy
Shari Trewin
This presentation focused on the potential utility of configuration agents that can adapt system parameters such as mouse speed and screen resolution to the needs of individual uses. Shari discussed the relationship between configuration agents, user control and user privacy. Privacy was mentioned as a key concern and it was suggested that supporting the user in their configuration needs could outweigh potential privacy infringements, until the user has gained enough control to perform their own configuration.
Reducing the Gap Between What Users Know and What They Need to Know
Ron Baecker, Kellog Booth, Sasha Jovicic, Joanna McGrenere, Gale Moore
This presentation discussed the main barriers to Universal Usability such as systems
complexity and poorly crafted interfaces which lead to confusion, frustation and failure. In
this session Ron and Joanna presented two related projects that address ways to reduce the gap
between what users know and what users should know. One project focussed on streaming video
online to help users learn how to install hardware components, and the second project
introduced the notion of multiple interfaces to help users cope with functional complexity.
Results were presented about an experiment with Microsoft Word.
Universal Usability needs to be commercially practical so these products can be used by real people in real situations and not limited to abstract research. Design can be generalized to those who are not disabled and who may need more usable products in a variety of contexts. Governments and commercial organizations are becoming more interested in accessibility for their clients and employees.
Disability is complex. Gregg Vandereiden mentioned there were approximately three hundred strategies for making products more accessible. The main focus was the question: What is most important? Designers must prioritize and determine what they need to focus on. What happens all too often is designers can become overwhelmed with details to focus on that they become "locked" and end up doing nothing. Therefore, they focus on what is easy and produce products that may not be usable by anyone. This paper attempts to come up with a method of prioritizing between possible changes to a product's interface. The paper discusses a multidimensional prioritization approach to solving these design issues.
"User Sensitive Inclusive Design" - in search of a new paradigm
Alan F. Newell, Peter Gregor (University of Dundee)
Prof. Alan F. Newell was a very comical speaker. He began by posting a map of Scotland and exhibiting where Dundee is located since it is very often confused. His paper considers appropriate research for developing Universal Usability by taking on an inclusive design methodology. He explained the research approach at Dundee by incorporating the involvement of disabled people as consultants, test pilots for prototype systems, user panels, formal case studies, and many individual users. He claimed at one point that we do not always pay attention to the articulate needs of the user.
The goal is find a new paradigm that includes the users themselves in the design process. Through this, the result would be the improved development of specialized equipment to provide mainstream engineers with an effective and efficient way of including people with disabilities, within the potential user groups, for their project design.
Towards a practical inclusive design approach
Simeon Keates, P. John Clarkson, Lee Anne Harrison, Peter Robinson (University of Cambridge)
Simeion Keates expressed the importance of simple methods to help inclusive design. In the U.K. legislation has been passed which has garnered the attention of government agencies and industry. Several design methodologies exist including universal design where specific populations are targeted. The speaker asserts that a more generalized design methodology can be used so that the problem can be explored. The user's wants and needs can be expressed and the design solution for all users can implemented.
Participant Stakeholder Evaluation as a Design Process
Richard Giordano (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
David Bell (Xerox Parc)
This paper describes a new approach to the design process to achieve universal usability. The research involves the study of participants at their environment in how the users redesign the tools to fit their needs. They process involves interviewing stakeholders in order to evaluate how they will change the design of the model in order to make the tool fit their needs. It was learned that most stakeholders do not want to go through the learning process, but instead, they go directly to the module and try to make it work. The philosophy is the process of use is the process of redesign. Through experience, it was learned that most users, in a sense, when using a product, manipulate the product to better their needs hence, the redesign process. The conclusions found that the process helped uncover the appropriateness off technology in work contexts and it helped to inform strategy, increased acceptance, and built a design capacity. This process involves the idea of co-design.
Usability and Public Administration
Tiziana Catarci (Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica)
Giacinto Matarazzo (Fondazione ugo Bordoni)
Gianluigi Raiss (Autorita per l'Informatica nella Pubblica)
The target of this paper is to increase universal usability in computers in public administration in Italy. This is an area that traditionally has not used much computer technology therefore, maximizing usability is crucial. Recently, there has been a group implemented to study the level of comfort or discomfort of the users in the public administration when encountering new software. The goal is to determine what improvements can be implemented in a short amount of time to increase performance.
This paper concentrates on tests conducted by the research teams. The tests include 1) work methods of the design teams 2) participation modes of the public administration in the design process 3) users' evaluation of the system usability with respect to their implicit and explicit needs 4) the lessons learned from this experience. The results were discussed in detail.
Telerehabilitation is the application of multimedia technologies to deliver rehabilitation services and support independent living for individuals with disabilities. The benefits of this technological application include being able to reach isolated consumers, the support of home recovery as opposed to hospital stays, and reduced cost to hospitals and patients.
Challenges include start-up costs, lack of bandwidth and reimbursement by health care providers. Most challenging, however, is the receptiveness of such applications by consumers and the usability of the application for those with various disabilities.
The panelists all work on projects related to the application of telerehabilitation. These projects include telenursing, televideo support for vocational counseling, unobtrusive functional monitoring at home, touchscreen telerehabilitation and "image mobility," teleplay and an attempt at cross-cultural application in the Pacific Rim.
The panelists discussed two dimensions of diversity that posed possible challenges to the implementation of their applications. One dimension was that of consumers and their families, specifically attitudes about health, disability, independence and privacy. The other dimension was that of rehabilitation professionals, specifically attitudes about assessment at a distance and state-by-state and plan-by-plan differences in reimbursement. Collectively, both of these dimensions also have mutual concerns about unfamiliarity with technology and the adjustability, choices, options and field-programmability of technology.
For consumers, one example cited by a panelist is the collectivist culture prevalent on the island of Yap. In the U.S., the desire for rehabilitation and independence is strong, whereas the collectivist culture on Yap is more accepting of dependence on caregivers. From the professional side, one example cited by a panelist is the issue of whether instrumented assessment is comparable to hands-on assessment for making clinical decisions.
The panel focused on discussing ways to provide equal access to technology and encourage equal opportunity for everyone. In many situations, there are individuals or groups who are not able to participate equally - either as a result of shyness, outside bias, or other reasons. The panel was divided into a number of sub-topics, all of which were concerned with addressing how equal access to technology can be promoted for different populations, including seniors, youths, disabled people, and gender. We will now summarize each topic discussed.
Lynne Henderson defined shyness as "the fear of looking foolish in social situations or being evaluated in social situations". Most of us have at some time felt insecure in a new or social situation; however, for some, these feelings are strong enough to cause the person to miss new opportunities. The underlying causes of shyness include self-consciousness and self-criticism, which lead to the fear of looking foolish. Technology may inspire these feelings in many people - which result in avoidance and missed opportunity. To combat this situation, we need to invite people to participate in safe, collaborative, non-competitive situations, which will inspire people to experiment with novel technologies and ideas.
Victoria Plaut spoke about gender issues in technology. Many women often avoid technology. Social environment is the main culprit - this can include a fear of math, few existing role models, gender stereotyping, computer games which are geared towards boys, biased attitudes of well-meaning parents and teachers, and others. She defined stereotype threat as the fear fulfilling negative stereotypes - something that can profoundly influence someone's ability to perform either academically or socially. For example, women who are reminded of their gender prior to taking a math test perform more poorly on the test. The actual representation of the domain, or the problem statement, can also influence performance. Woman who were told to solve a "communications" problem in HTML had a significantly more positive experience than woman who were told to solve the exact same problem, but who were told that it was a "programming" task.
Charles Merritt discussed youth access to Information Technology. Under-privileged students face many barriers trying to use technology , mainly accessibility. Access from home is essential in order to complete assignments and build confidence using the technology, but many students simply do not have computers at home. The VOICES project focuses on providing access to technology for low-income youth, by providing grants that furnish computers for them and their families. Low-income students also receive invitations to participate in multimedia projects, which boosters both technological skills and self-confidence.
Richard Adler discussed SeniorNet, which is an initiative to expose seniors to technology. The use of technology decreases as age increases. The main culprit is access - many seniors simply do not have the access to computers. The other cause is fear, since modern technology often overwhelms older users. The SeniorNet initiative includes holding classes for seniors that introduce them to technology. The project is a major success, as a result of a number of factors. These include accessible centers, friendly classes, open labs, and most importantly, peer teachers that allow the students to feel comfortable.
Vanessa Fleming introduced the concept of using Assistive technology for various purposes i.e., to assist disabled users. We need to think about tools that are used to assist users with disabilities as also potentially useful for the general population - this will profit a broader population of users, and help to remove some of the negative stigmas associated with assistive technologies.
Finally, user-centered applications were discussed. The main motivation is to create a technology that allows the instant customization of a technological device through the use of an intermediate tool, the Accessor. This tool stores user-specific information, and provides a seamless interface to the user's tools, such as the computer, speech generator, palm pilot, and any other device.
The CUU conference ended its first day with a poster session, and a reception that included, most importantly, food and drinks. Food choices were phenomenal including a variety of hordeuvres, fajitas, roast beef and omelets to order. Each conference participant received a free drink. It appeared that fun was had by all.
The poster session included a variety of subjects related to universal usability. Presenters' motivations for research included those who have had an interest in contributing to the area of diversity for many years, including a researcher who has been interested since the age of 12. He has been developing a tool for the past year that evaluates universal web accessibility. He plans to link these features to match the 508 regulations. One of the presenters has been visually impaired her whole life and has had the desire to contribute to interface design for the visually impaired. She is in the process of developing animated icons for the GUI. Another student's interests in universal usablility started while receiving her degree overseas. At the time Microsoft word introduced their Chinese version of Word. This version contained everything in the Chinese language except the icons which were in English. Consequently, she began to work on development of icons with Chinese characters. Students working on research related to age differences in navigation systems are proteges of Ben Shneiderman. Another researcher is interested in developing an information kiosk that recognizes gestures, in particular, Japanese sign language.
Overall, an abundance of excitement and communication about the topic of universal usability was generated by those that were present and this greatly indicates that the future for this topic holds great potential.
Elizabeth Mynatt described her work that strives to lengthen the time that older adults may remain in their own home. The motivating factor behind her work is the increasing number of older adults due to improvements in medical technology. A specific concern is the fact that, moves to assistive living centers are more often driven by decreases in cognitive ability than by physical impairments; yet most researchers focus on the physical issues. Furthermore, Dr. Mynatt is working to address both the cognitive and social issues. She mapped out these issues into the categories of enhanced daily living support and crisis support, the former the focus of her research. Through her interdisciplinary approach, she also found that the social relationships are also very important to support. This work is part of a larger project going on at Georgia Tech with the Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory. Contextual information and behavior patterns are extracted from sensors around the home laboratory and used in various projects. For example, the digital family portrait is a project that discretely monitors daily well being of the older adults to give peace of mind to the adult children. “What was I cooking” is another project she described that creates a collage of activity snapshots to help a person to resume cooking activities after being interrupted. In order to do both of these projects, Irfan Essa is researching computational perception techniques to recognize activity. Dr. Mynatt’s focus is on peace of mind of the adult child while balancing the privacy of the elderly parent.
The group then discussed the need to design a system that accommodates people’s different levels of ability (for example visual or auditory). Dr. Mynatt clarified that there are not older adults living the in lab right now, and addressed the safety concerns of having people relying on and participating in the research.
The ELDer Project: Social, Emotional, and Environmental Factors in the Design of Eldercare Technologies
Tad Hirsch, Jodi Forlizzi, Elaine Hyder, Jennifer Goetz, Jacey Stroback, Chris Kurtz (Carnegie Mellon University)
Tad Hirsch discussed his work on developing technologies for the elderly population. He approaches his development from both a psychological/social science and a product development perspective. His major point was that self-perception of abilities and perceptions of the device are important contributing factors in level of acceptance of the device. He strongly urges designers to take into consideration aesthetics in the design of systems.
One member of the audience mentioned that marketing is a large factor in changing the perception of devices. Another person felt that designing things to be “cooler” is condescending to older adults. Tad Hirsch clarified that the system is serving not only a functional need but also an emotional need for older adults.
Designing for Context: Usability in a Ubiquitous Environment
Jenna Burrell, Paul Treadwell, Geri K. Gay: Cornell University
Ms. Burrell's talk focused on the role of ubiquitous computing, examining use in a variety of settings and systems rather than by a variety of users. In their study of context-aware computing, researchers tested the use of wireless laptops in educational environments. As opposed to similar systems that focus on providing services such as context-aware tours, the researcher were interested in developing a user-defined space in which individuals would use the technology for their own purposes. Ms. Burrell described the results of a study of a context-aware system entitled Graffiti with which users could attach public notes to specific locations. However, the researchers discovered that those individuals that used the system did so for some unanticipated purposes, such as instant messaging, that focused on synchronous rather than asynchronous communication. Thus they realized that further research would need to take into consideration social issues, such as the need for critical mass for technology as well as possible support for synchronous communication.
In discussion, members of the audience brought up several issues. For example, participants discussed whether or not blind students were included in the study and how such technology could be used to support their specific needs for context-aware information. Ms. Burrell responded that they had not focused on this user group in their research, but that in further iterations of their design it would be a potential they might want to explore. In discussion, Ms. Burrell also clarified that the messages left in the Graffiti system stay there permanently, but that in the future the ability to customize the expiration date for messages would be appropriate for messages that would need to be kept for different periods of time. She also clarified that location information is determined not by a global positioning system but by the user's relationship to a wireless tower.
The Beauty of Simplicity
Kristina Karvonen: University of Helsinki and Helsinki University of Technology
In her talk, Ms. Karvonen discussed the role of aesthetics in fostering trust and security on the World Wide Web. She argued that one aspect of usability is to provide the user with a pleasant feeling, which impacts their ability to effectively use the system. She stated that usability can draw upon the field of aesthetics to elicit trust on the part of the user in conducting commercial transactions on the Web, and discussed ways in which designers can increase those feelings of trust through techniques such as simplicity. She argued one must understand the aesthetic taste of the user group, and debated the issue of whether or not one can define aesthetics that would be universally acceptable.
In discussion, one participant recommended the book The Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander (in press) that discussed the importance of methodology in assessing aesthetics. Ms. Karvonen agreed with this point and stressed that one must design questions that elicit truthful answers by respondents. Another participant questioned whether or not the aesthetic of simplicity was specific to the Nordic culture. Ms. Karvonen responded by stating that while she conducted her research primarily in Nordic countries, even those respondents described a preference for more complexity in specific situations. Participants also discussed the role of history, culture, and knowledge -- in addition to visual factors -- in user's aesthetic judgments.
The system currently works in English and Cantonese Chinese with plans to expand it to Mandarin Chinese as well. Telephone access is possible through landline and mobile phones using various standards. Reuters is a sponsor of the project and supplies a dedicated satellite feed for it. Users can choose between two different interactions aimed at novice and expert users. The directed dialogue option offers stepwise guidance while the natural language interaction allows users to use entire sentences with all the information they want to convey to the system. By saying "change language" (or its Chinese equivalent), users can switch between English and Chinese. If you are interested in trying the system, you can do so by calling 852-2609-7884 for the directed dialogue option or 852-2609-7830 for the natural language option. (Please note that this is not a toll free call.)
We were fortunate to hear examples of the interactions between users and the system through audio demonstrations. The system seems to be at quite a developed stage. The presenter confirmed this by citing numbers that show the level of success achieved in the testing phase. The natural language system was achieving 87.6 percent reliability while the directed dialogue version reached a success rate of 93 percent. The criteria used for this evaluation included information about the language, the exchange rate and the currency bought and sold in addition to other attributes of the session.
An audience member asked whether this system could be used to substitute reliance on information on the screen. It is clear that such an approach could have great implications for blind persons' access to certain technologies. By not being able to rely on the visual cues that screens supply to users, visually impaired users could derive great benefits from audio cues that this system generates.
Kitch Barnicle's study - the third in this session - made the importance of alternatives to visual cues quite apparent. Her presentation summarized an in-depth user study she did as her dissertation focussing on the use of Windows environments by blind people. Her findings made it clear that current options in Windows software are often tedious to understand for blind users who rely on screen reading software and end up wasting considerable amount of time overcoming obstacles due to problematic features of the system.
The purpose of this study was to document the difficulties faced by visually impaired users in dealing with graphical user interfaces. The participants were selected by contacting local service agencies and training programs in universities around New York, in addition to relying on word of mouth. There were four women and nine men in the study six of whom were self-identified computer professionals. All participants had used the JAWS screen reading software for at least six months, had six months to twenty years of computer experience and had six months to four years of Windows use experience. Including JAWS users for this study was optimal given that most such users do relatively little customization so its use in the research lab did not pose much of a problem.
The researcher found that blind users faced 58 obstacles during the Windows use sessions. The use of 13 subjects is justified by the fact that 80 percent of all obstacles were encountered by the 8th user. Overall, the biggest concern is that these obstacles cause considerable delays. Although any one obstacle may only contribute to a few seconds of delay, on the aggregate, this is a considerable amount of time wasted by these users due to limitations of the system.
Barnicle emphasized the importance of more user studies to document in more detail and across more platforms and programs the difficulties faced by blind users. The goal is to create procedural guidelines for developers to circumvent the noted obstacles in the future.
The second talk also addressed the importance of guidelines for developers, although in this case the focus was on Web site developers in general. The talk on "Accessible Accessibility" summarized the project of the Digital Media Access Group at the University of Dundee. The overall message of this project is to point out that no one method for assessing and achieving accessibility and universal usability in Web page design is currently sufficient. Instead, it is important to use a meta-method that brings together the strengths of different approaches. The outcome of a site evaluation should be a comprehensive audit that includes a set of instructions on how to improve a site. There is also a need for better communication with site administrators. As for the future, the group hopes to see the development of a semi-automated evaluation tool so not everything has to be done manually and so non-expert users also have access to such an audit.
The last talk of the session suggested a way to use technology to enhance communication between persons with brain injury and their environment. "If it's useful for paralyzed pilots, then why not for paralyzed persons?" asked the presenter Eamon Doherty. The presentation on Transcending Method Boundaries in Assistive Technology for Traumatic Brain Injury, a project of the University of Sunderland and the Neurological Institute of New Jersey, demonstrated their combined efforts in developing a brain-body interface. This technology, which finds its roots in the military, records the brain waves, eye movement, and motor movement in the forehead region; the brain activities that offer a basis for the proposed brain-body interface. The speaker carefully noted that ramifications and sensitivity surrounding their study. In the medical field, careful attention is given to methods of observation and caution is taken not to draw conclusions prematurely. In the meantime parents and relatives eagerly await the chance to communicate with their isolated loved ones and can find much joy in communication limited to the use of Yes and No answers.
In summary, these presentations focused on a diverse community setting, whether that community consists of bilinguals, experts and novices, or visually or physically impaired persons. Perhaps the most intriguing questions we can ask for the future is what the possibilities are for these technologies when applied in a truly universal sense. With the expansion and combination of these and other such technologies, an unimaginable number of possibilities exist. Imagine a world in which severely brain injured people, today in complete isolation, can reenter the world; a world in which natural voice recognition reduces the difficulty of communication between people of different languages; a world in which software and Web interfaces incorporate all of the human senses. While the answers to universal usability elude us, the research, hope, and vision exhibited at this conference maintains the promise of universal usability.
Fellows preferred sharing their experiences rather than giving recommendations.
Story 1: Addie's Shoes
Adelaide Edelson the nice lady that I will remember as pianist and Mac user told us about her husband. In addition to low finger dexterity he has poor vision. One of the everyday routines he had problems with was putting on his shoes. The solution was that his shoes were color-coded and had bigger parts.
Alan F. Newell (University of Dundee) made a suggestion to think of all 'Addie's shoes' we come across. He also made a suggestion to use 'Addie's shoes' as a catch phrase in UU.
Story 2: Deane's desire for independence
The story was told by Deane's wife. Limited technology is provided to Deane. The technology doesn't meet his needs. Fear of technology plus the fear of looking silly go in his way. He wishes for the opportunity to have a choice over the type of aids he has and to maintain self image.
After the story Alan F. Newell jumped in with another funny comment. This time it was a poem.
Story 3: The fisherman's son
This story raised such an important issue of cultural differences. It received a lot of warm response from the audience. In particular from international attendees who could easily identify with the issue at hand. There was a debate on the conflict between the approaches of `one size fits all' and individual differences.
Overall, fellows highly encourage people to take steps toward including as many people as possible into the contemporary world which happens to be highly technological. This includes building awareness of such problems and continuing value research that is already taking place.
Organizers: Cecilia Kullman, Joanna McGrenere, John Thomas, Jean Scholtz,
Joelle Coutaz, Ben Shneiderman, David Novick, Keith Instone and Susan Regli.
David Novick and Joelle Coutaz
Michael Burks and John Thomas
The report was written by Cythia Overton, Diane Maloney-Krichmar, Miguel Oliveira, Salvador Mandujano, Leopolodo Macias III, Stephanie Ludi, Wendy Korn, Kasia Muldner, Hilary Browne, Paul Kim, Elizabeth Zaychik, Anna Bouch, Sylvia Olveda, Ellen Ermer-Braun, and others.