From the category archives:

accessibility

Exit Signs Across Cultures

by Anne McLaughlin
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Slate.com has a nice article on the difference between U.S. exit signs and the rest of the world, as well as a nice history of the evolution of the symbols.  Here is an excerpt to get you interested:
The text-based American exit sign has its origins in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, a blaze in a downtown Manhattan garment factory that [...]

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Making virtual worlds more accessible – a new context area for Human Factors

by Anne McLaughlin
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The Consumerist blog (of Consumer Reports) posted an article on the state of California suing Sony because their online Playstation services were not accessibly designed.
Quoted from The Consumerist post:
At the crux of the plaintiff’s failed case was their contention that, because PlayStation allows people all over the world to connect and play games together via their now-repaired PlayStation Network, that [...]

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Tabs, tabs, and more tabs…

by Richard Pak
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This post on Smashing Magazine about vertical navigation had me thinking about the book Anne and I are writing (manuscript due this Friday; panicking…I’m a 10 on the Wong-Baker scale).  In one of the chapters I discuss tab navigation.  When I was looking for a particularly bad example of the use of tabs I remembered Amazon’s website circa 2000.  Fortunately, [...]

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Pain Scale Emoticons

by Richard Pak
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I don’t visit the doctor frequently (less than once a year) but last year I went to the doctor and as part of the paperwork, I encountered a question about how much pain I felt (shown above).
This is the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale (which seems to be available online).  I thought this was a great way to ask about [...]

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HF Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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James Rubinstein sends along a this post about a 32 inch LCD TV presumably designed for older users.  It has features such as a dramatically simplified remote control, fewer wires, and a shut-off timer.  [Engadget]
Designing Devices is a relatively new blog devoted to “how and why to create devices” from Dan Saffer (author of Designing for Interaction).  I’m loving the [...]

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Vision-themed Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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Today’s potpourri happens to be related to understanding or enhancing what your users see (or don’t see):

Google Browser Size let’s you see how much of your web content is visible by users.
Rocker Lou Reed (of the Velvet Underground) designs an iPhone app for near-sighted users.  It basically increases the font size in the contacts application.  It appears that Mr. [...]

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Human Factors and Healthcare: The older patient & nurse

by Richard Pak
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I‘ve recently published two papers on the topic of human factors and healthcare. Each paper covers a different “stakeholder”: the older patient and the nurse.  The first paper is available for free but the second paper (a collaboration with my architect colleague Dina Battisto) is available at your local library (or you can request a PDF reprint from me).
Pak, R., [...]

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HFES Conference in San Antonio, Part 4 – Hearing and Understanding

by Anne McLaughlin

The paper described in this post was part of the Aging Technical Group sessions at HFES.
Hearing Levels Affect Higher-Order Cognitive Performance – Carryl L. Baldwin, George Mason University
Perhaps I was excited by this talk because I could see how the information could be used in the book Rich and I are working on. This presentation was a fascinating exploration of [...]

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HFES Conference in San Antonio, Part 3 – Health/Internet…and ROBOTS!

by Richard Pak
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One of my major interests at the moment is in the use of technological tools (primarily the Web) in the management of health.  So it was with great pleasure that there was so much research on this topic (I will mention more in future posts).
The first was presented in the Aging session (where Anne was program chair).  Jessie [...]

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Usability issues in navigating your life

by Richard Pak

Gordon Bell, a Microsoft Researcher, is recording his life in excruciating detail in a project dubbed MyLifeBits:
Web sites he’s visited (221,173), photos taken (56,282), emails sent and received (156,041), docs written and read (18,883), phone conversations had (2,000), photos snapped by the SenseCam hanging around his neck (66,000), songs listened to (7,139), and videos taken by him (2,164).
Why is he [...]

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Consumer Reports story on Automobile Ergonomics

by Anne McLaughlin

Zoom over to the Consumer Reports car blog for a case study of accessibility by Gabe Shenhar .

Driving with an injury: Features that can ease the pain (excerpted):

…I have come to a new appreciation, surveying our vehicle test fleet, of what everyday life must be like for people with physical challenges or limited mobility.
For me right now, the key is [...]

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A Blind Person’s Interactions With Technology

by Richard Pak

The latest issue of Communications of the ACM has an interesting story on the unique issues in interface design and usability when the user is blind.  The author/researchers Kristen Shinohara and Josh Tenenberg conducted interviews to examine limitations in current accessibility technologies for the blind.
Showing off her BrailleNote, she said she prefers [...]

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Augmented Reality for Everyone

by Richard Pak

There have been many recent examples of consumer friendly augmented reality applications for smart phone users.  I remember reading about augmented reality research over a decade ago (in an HCI class) and remembering how bulky, expensive, experimental, and out-of-reach it seemed back then.  The systems back then required head-mounted displays and were physically attached to cameras and large computers.  Now [...]

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Watch out for Un-Equalsteppings!

by Richard Pak

Reader Joe C. sent in this unusual warning on a door.
It was on the entry door to one of the screens at a local cinema. The un-equalsteppings just turned out to be a slope! Not sure why they couldn’t of just told me it was a slope.

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Can you hear me now? Why yes, I can!

by Richard Pak

I just ran across this review of the Jitterbug phone and service.  It is a MVNO (a virtual mobile phone company) that rides on the Sprint mobile phone service.  The added value of Jitterbug is that the phone is designed to be simple (for older adults).  In this review, one thing caught my attention:
The trouble with finding a full coverage [...]

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Book: Designing for Older Adults, 2nd edition

by Richard Pak

Things are quiet on the blog because Anne and I are recovering from the end of the Spring semester and we are furiously finishing our book (tentatively titled, “Designing Displays for Older Adults‘).  It will be one in a series of books in the Human Factors & Aging Series from CRC Press that will be “primers on designing for older [...]

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