Jacob O. Wobbrock
ABSTRACT
The term "disability" connotes an absence of ability, but is like saying "dis-money" or "dis-height." All living people have some abilities [2]. Unfortunately, history is filled with examples of a focus on dis-ability, on what is missing, and on ensuing attempts to replace lost function to make people match a rigid world. Although often well intended, such a focus assumes humans must be adapted, and that interfaces, devices, and environments get to remain as they are. At the same time, our built things embody numerous "ability assumptions" imparted by their designers, and yet our built things remain unaware of their users' abilities. They also remain unaware of the situations their users are in, or how those situations affect their users' abilities [2,3]. An important shift in perspective comes by allowing people to "remain as they are," asking instead how interfaces, devices, and environments can bear the burden of becoming more suitable to their users' situated abilities. I call this perspective and the principles that accompany it "Ability-Based Design" [4,5], where the human abilities required to use a technology in a given context are questioned, and systems are made operable by or adaptable to alternative abilities. From this perspective, all people have varying degrees of ability, and different situations lead to different ability limitations, some long-term and some momentary. Some ability limitations come mostly from within the self, others from mostly outside the self. Ability-Based Design considers this whole "landscape of ability," respecting the human at its center and asking more of our technologies. In this talk, I will cover a decade's worth of projects related to Ability-Based Design, some directed at "people with disabilities" and others directed at "people in disabling situations." Rather than dive into any one project, I will convey a space of explored possibilities. I will also put forth a grand challenge: that anyone, anywhere, at any time can interact with technologies ideally suited to their specific situated abilities, and that our technologies do the work to achieve this fit.
- Kane, S.K., Bigham, J.P. and Wobbrock, J.O. (2008). Slide Rule: Making mobile touch screens accessible to blind people using multi-touch interaction techniques. Proceedings of the ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '08). Halifax, Nova Scotia (October 13--15, 2008). New York: ACM Press, pp. 73--80. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1414487 Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Newell, A.F. (1995). Extra-ordinary human-computer interaction. Chapter 1 in Extra-Ordinary Human-Computer Interaction: Interfaces for Users with Disabilities, Alistair D. N. Edwards (ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3--18. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=215600Google Scholar
- Sears, A. and Young, M. (2003). Physical disabilities and computing technologies: An analysis of impairments. Chapter 25 in The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook (1st ed.), Julie A. Jacko and A. Sears (eds.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 482--503. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=772105Google Scholar
- Wobbrock, J.O. (2014). Improving pointing in graphical user interfaces for people with motor impairments through ability-based design. Chapter 8 in G. Kouroupetroglou (ed.), Assistive Technologies and Computer Access for Motor Disabilities. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, pp. 206--253. http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/improving-pointing-graphical-user-interfaces/78429 Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wobbrock, J.O., Kane, S.K., Gajos, K.Z., Harada, S. and Froehlich, J. (2011). Ability-Based Design: Concept, principles and examples. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing 3 (3), April 201 Article No. 9. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1952384 Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- SIGCHI Social Impact Award Talk -- Ability-Based Design: Elevating Ability over Disability in Accessible Computing
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