posted on 2010-05-27, 10:26authored byDavid Sloan, Matthew T. Atkinson, Colin Machin, Yunqiu Li
Supporting effective and enjoyable Web usage by people with
sensory, motor and cognitive impairments requires more than just
accessible Web content. There is an additional task of matching
people with an accessibility solution that best accommodates their
particular needs - which, especially for older Web users, may
fluctuate in severity, number and combination. Lack of awareness
of one’s own accessibility needs and the solutions that may exist
to accommodate them may lead to a reduced quality Web
browsing experience or even abandonment.
This paper discusses the difficulties in matching people with less
severe, but multiple, impairments with the most appropriate
accessibility features at a given time, and explores the role of
automated or semi-automated adaptations as a solution for this
problem. We review related work, and report on the early stages
of our own work conducted to prove the concept of adaptations
for accessibility in the specific context of supporting Web users
with age-related capability decline. We also consider the potential
ethical issues of automated and semi-automated accessibility
adaptations on the wellbeing of older Web users, and how these
might best be managed in a suitably sensitive way.
History
School
Science
Department
Computer Science
Citation
SLOAN, D. ... et al, 2010. The potential of adaptive interfaces as an accessibility aid for older web users. Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A), Raleigh, North Carolina, April 26-27 2010, article no. 35.