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Special Interest Group:
To Boldy Go Where Everyone Else Has Gone Before: Issues in Designing and
Evaluating for Usability and Accessibility
Robert J. Kamper and Michael DiAngelo, IBM Corp.
Thursday, July 1, 1999, 5:15-6:30 pm
Accessibility is an important issue of concern to all usability
professionals that will continue to increase
in importance in the future, especially in the government sector. People
with special needs comprise over
ten percent of the world's population. In the past, access has typically
been enabled through the use of
assistive technologies, such as screen readers or hyper-braille output
devices. In the future, we expect accessibility
to be embedded within interfaces in order to provide usability to all end
users.
This SIG will begin with a brief overview of the principles of
accessibility and universal design and pointers to
sources of information, tools and guidelines for software development. This
will be followed by a short brainstorming session
to identify key issues of needs and concerns for participants. Upon
identification of a few major topics of interest, the
SIG will break into smaller groups based on topic interests to brainstorm,
share data, and suggest solutions or directions.
Finally, the topic groups will present their results to the group as a
whole.
IBM has a long history of helping improve the employability, education, and
quality of life for people who have disabilities,
and has long been committed to making its information technologies widely
available and accessible without regard to the ability of the user.
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