Bringing the Mountain to Muhammad
Online Services and the Disabled Computer User

By Norman Coombs
College of Liberal Arts
Rochester Institute of Technology
One Lomb Memorial Dr.
Rochester, NY 14623
Email NRCGSH@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU


The rapid growth of online services brings information to the user instead of the user having to travel to the information source. This fact, along with the advent of adapted computer systems, means that the user with disabilities becomes and enabled user, not a disabled user. The development of the personal computer with adaptive software and/or hardware has been one of the most liberating innovations for handicapped persons in modern times. The ability to take this new powerful tool and connect it to a modem and telephone can bring the world to serve one's needs. Computer telecommunications is rapidly providing access to numerous commercial and educational services and also to an expanding variety of information sources. These include online education, access to reference works, full-text books and periodicals, a wide variety of databases for education and business as well as online shopping services. While accessing them from a computer at home is convenient for most people, this ability provides an entirely new opportunity for the handicapped.

Online access to these services has two advantages for disabled computer users: not having to travel, and using already familiar computer systems. These online services, however, may present two kinds of problems to the disabled computer user: inconvenient user input requirements and displays that may be difficult to access by a handicapped person. These difficulties could often be overcome by more careful design: permitting alternative user inputs and by presenting display information in redundant forms. These two recommendations would do more than assist the handicapped population. By designing services with
flexibility built into them, the online service will meet the needs of the widest possible population: able bodied users with differing work styles and the disabled who have differing work needs.

First, whether visually impaired or mobility impaired, getting to some physical location to access specific information facilities can be difficult. Online access can be done from home. If the handicapped computer user requires adaptive devices to use the computer, many libraries, schools or businesses may not have these readily available. However, even when they are there and ready to use, the user may be familiar with a different brand of hardware or software. Using an entirely strange command set can be frustrating. Whereas, when accessing online systems from home, the user is working with his or her own familiar equipment. This removes one interface problem immediately.

Unfortunately, the interface problem with online materials is not always that simple. Some systems require very specific kinds of computer communications packages to function. The user may still find it necessary to own and learn more than one of these. Then, each service often has its own unique display format and differing command sets to use it. Forcing a rigid standardization on all these systems would be stultifying and counterproductive. However, the interface problem could be significantly reduced by the general adoption of these two principles: alternative input options and redundant display material. I should note that I am writing as a disabled user and not as a technical expert. The following recommendations will be based on personal experiences.

The online services I have used require two different kinds of user inputs: keystrokes and manipulating a highlight bar on the menu. When the keystroke demands the user's holding two keys simultaneously, this can be impossible for some motor impaired persons. Function keys and some other special keys are sometimes utilized by the users communications software and cannot be passed through to the online service. Controlling the highlight bar can be confusing for the visually impaired user. However, if the system allowed alternative responses, the
preferences and needs of different users could be met. A menu could permit the user either to input choices by moving a highlight bar, using a function key,selecting a number from the menu or perhaps entering the first letter of different menu items. This would permit the software designer to exercise creativity in product design and simultaneously permit the user flexibility in using inputs which are most convenient for him or her. It would also permit the use of a wider variety of communications packages by the user.

The use of redundant displays is already built into some of the above comments. A menu could display both numbered items and a selection highlighted bar. The other place where redundant output is useful is when the service makes use of a lot of graphics which may not be recognized by a speech output system. If the menu is created in graphics, it could also include some redundant, brief descriptive text. If the service is a shopping service, it could have a very short text
description of the item shown in picture form. This would not be very demanding on the software programmer, but it would make the product more accessible. There will always be some need to display maps and graphs which cannot readily be duplicated in text. While adaptive technology and imaginative design can greatly reduce the access problems of physical handicaps, it may not be able to be a total panacea. The challenge is to design the system to reduce the impact of such disabilities to the minimum.

AS a blind computer user, I have used online computing to access a wide variety of information sources. As an educator, I have taken and taught courses through the New School for Social Research in NYC which has included people from three different countries. AT RIT, I have taught online courses for half a dozen years to hundreds of students including some with physical disabilities. The modifications to telecommunication interfaces recommended here will benefit more than the handicapped. The general computer user community includes people with differing work styles and preferences. Some are visually oriented and some word oriented. Alternative inputs and redundant displays will make these systems more genuinely user friendly and more generally usable. The service provider will not only aid the disabled by such careful design, but will enlarge the total pool of potential users. On one hand, the dow Jones system has a tremendous variety of services available and still remains accessible to a broad set of computers and communications software. Prodigy, on the other hand, requires using their specialized software and is so dependant on graphics as to be totally useless to a blind consumer. By taking the needs of disabled consumers into consideration, providers of online services will not only provide a valuable social service, they will guarantee that the broadest population of consumers, regardless of their needs and equipment, will be potential users.


Acknowledgment

This article was adapted from an extended abstract submitted to the Association for Computing Machinery for a workshop on human-computer interaction and users with special needs (new Orleans, April, 1991.)