Universal Usability
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Universal Usability
Universal usability refers to the design of information and communications products and services that are usable for every citizen. The concept has been advocated by Professor Ben Shneiderman, a computer scientist at the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also provided a more practical definition of universal usability – "having more than 90% of all households as successful users of information and communications services at least once a week." The concept of universal usability ("usable by all") is closely related to the concepts of universal design and design for all. These three concepts altogether cover, from the user's end to the developer's end, the three important research areas of information and communications technology (ICT): use, access, and design. tite Challenges There are three major challenges to universal usability: #Supporting a broad range of hardware, software, and network access. With the advance of ICT, users' ...
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Ben Shneiderman
Ben Shneiderman (born August 21, 1947) is an American computer scientist, a Distinguished University Professor in the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the founding director (1983-2000) of the University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab. He conducted fundamental research in the field of human–computer interaction, developing new ideas, methods, and tools such as the direct manipulation interface, and his eight rules of design. Early life and education Born in New York, Shneiderman, attended the Bronx High School of Science, and received a BS in Mathematics and Physics from the City College of New York in 1968. He then went on to study at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he received an MS in Computer Science in 1972 and graduated with a PhD in 1973. Career Shneiderman s ...
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Curb Cut
A curb cut (U.S.), curb ramp, depressed curb, dropped kerb ( UK), pram ramp, or kerb ramp (Australia) is a solid (usually concrete) ramp graded down from the top surface of a sidewalk to the surface of an adjoining street. It is designed primarily for pedestrian usage and commonly found in urban areas where pedestrian activity is expected. In comparison with a conventional curb (finished at a right angle above the street surface) a curb cut is finished at an intermediate gradient that connects both surfaces, sometimes with tactile paving. History Historically speaking, footpaths were finished at right angles to the street surface with conventional curb treatments. The introduction of them to help people pushing prams dates back at least as far as the 1930s in the UK. Kalamazoo, Michigan installed curb cuts in the 1940s as a pilot project to aid employment of veterans with disabilities. A major project in Berkeley, California led by the grassroots Center for Independent Living l ...
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World Usability Day
Established in 2005 by the Usability Professionals Association, (now the User Experience Professionals Association), World Usability Day (WUD) or Make Things Easier Day occurs annually to promote the values of usability, usability engineering, user-centered design, universal usability Universal usability refers to the design of information and communications products and services that are usable for every citizen. The concept has been advocated by Professor Ben Shneiderman, a computer scientist at the Human-Computer Interaction ..., and every user's responsibility to ask for things that work better. The day adopts a different theme each year. Organizations, groups, or individuals are encouraged to hold events to mark the day, optionally according to that year's theme. World Usability Day started as an idea springing from a discussion in the fall of 2004 between two UPA board member, Elizabeth Rosenzweig and Nigel Bevan. They worked together with the UPA board to start World U ...
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Universal Design
Universal design is the design of buildings, products or environments to make them accessible to people, regardless of age, disability or other factors. It addresses common barriers to participation by creating things that can be used by the maximum number of people possible. Curb cuts or sidewalk ramps, which are essential for people in wheelchairs but also used by all, are a common example of universal design. The term ''universal design'' was coined by the architect Ronald Mace to describe the concept of designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life. However, due to some people having unusual or conflicting access needs, such as a person with low vision needing bright light and a person with photophobia needing dim light, universal design does not address absolutely every need for every person in every situation. Universal design emerged from sli ...
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Usability Testing
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. It is more concerned with the design intuitiveness of the product and tested with users who have no prior exposure to it. Such testing is paramount to the success of an end product as a fully functioning application that creates confusion amongst its users will not last for long. This is in contrast with usability inspection methods where experts use different methods to evaluate a user interface without involving users. Usability testing focuses on measuring a human-made product's capacity to meet its intended purposes. Examples of products that commonly benefit from usability testing are food, consumer products, websites or web applications, computer interfaces, documents, and devices. Usability testing measures the usability, or ease of use, ...
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Usability
Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a software can be used by specified consumers to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, vehicle, or anything a human interacts with. A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a ''usability analyst'' or as a secondary job function by designers, technical writers, marketing personnel, and others. It is widely used in consumer electronics, communication, and knowledge transfer objects (such as a cookbook, a document or online help) and mechanical objects such as a door handle or a hammer. Usability includes methods of measuring usability, such as needs analysis and t ...
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Contextualization
Contextualization may refer to: * Contextualization (Bible translation), the process of contextualising the biblical message as perceived in the missionary mandate originated by Jesus * Contextualization (computer science), an initialization phase setting or overriding properties having unknown or default values at the time of template creation * Contextualization (sociolinguistics), the use of language and discourse to signal relevant aspects of an interactional or communicative situation * Contextualism, a collection of views in philosophy which argue that actions or expressions can only be understood in context See also * Context (other) Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...
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E-government
E-government (short for electronic government) is the use of technological communications devices, such as computers and the Internet, to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offers new opportunities for more direct and convenient citizen access to government and for government provision of services directly to citizens. The term consists of the digital interactions between a citizen and their government (C2G), between governments and other government agencies (G2G), between government and citizens (G2C), between government and employees (G2E), and between government and businesses/commerces (G2B). E-government delivery models can be broken down into the following categories:Jeong Chun Hai @Ibrahim. (2007). ''Fundamental of Development Administration.'' Selangor: Scholar Press. This interaction consists of citizens communicating with all levels of government (city, state/province, national, and international), facilitat ...
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Adaptive User Interfaces
An adaptive user interface (also known as AUI) is a user interface (UI) which adapts, that is changes, its layout and elements to the needs of the user or context and is similarly alterable by each user. These mutually reciprocal qualities of both adapting and being adaptable are, in a true AUI, also innate to elements that comprise the interface's components; portions of the interface might adapt to and affect other portions of the interface. This later mechanism is usually employed to integrate two logically distinct components, such as an interactive document and an application (e.g. a web browser) into one seamless whole. The user adaptation is often a negotiated process, as an adaptive user interface's designers ignore where user interface components ought to go while affording a means by which both the designers and the user can determine their placement, often (though not always) in a semi-automated, if not fully automated manner. An AUI is primarily created based on th ...
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Multimodal Interaction
Multimodal interaction provides the user with multiple modes of interacting with a system. A multimodal interface provides several distinct tools for input and output of data. Introduction Multimodal human-computer interaction refers to the "interaction with the virtual and physical environment through natural modes of communication", This implies that multimodal interaction enables a more free and natural communication, interfacing users with automated systems in both input and output. Specifically, multimodal systems can offer a flexible, efficient and usable environment allowing users to interact through input modalities, such as speech, handwriting, hand gesture and gaze, and to receive information by the system through output modalities, such as speech synthesis, smart graphics and other modalities, opportunely combined. Then a multimodal system has to recognize the inputs from the different modalities combining them according to temporal and contextual constraintsCasche ...
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Disabilities Affecting Intellectual Abilities
There are a variety of disabilities affecting cognitive ability. This is a broad concept encompassing various intellectual or cognitive deficits, including intellectual disability (formerly called ''mental retardation''), deficits too mild to properly qualify as intellectual disability, various specific conditions (such as specific learning disability), and problems acquired later in life through acquired brain injuries or neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. Many of these disabilities have an effect on memory, which is the ability to recall what has been learned over time. Typically memory is moved from sensory memory to working memory, and then finally into long-term memory. People with cognitive disabilities typically will have trouble with one of these types of memory. Intellectual disability Intellectual disability, also known as ''general learning disability'', and previously known as ''mental retardation'' (a term now considered offensive), is a generalized disorder ...
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Hearing Impairment
Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken language, and in adults it can create difficulties with social interaction and at work. Hearing loss can be temporary or permanent. Hearing loss related to age usually affects both ears and is due to cochlear hair cell loss. In some people, particularly older people, hearing loss can result in loneliness. Deaf people usually have little to no hearing. Hearing loss may be caused by a number of factors, including: genetics, ageing, exposure to noise, some infections, birth complications, trauma to the ear, and certain medications or toxins. A common condition that results in hearing loss is chronic ear infections. Certain infections during pregnancy, such as cytomegalovirus, syphilis and rubella, may also cause hearing loss in the child. ...
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