Categories | Social impact: Education | Disabilities: Medical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Auditory | Disabilities: Visual |
Description - Some forms of entertainment, video games for instance, cannot be accessed by persons with disabilities. Build a video game that can be enjoyed by anyone. A game that can be used in an educational setting for young children would be excellent. Multiplayer games would be interesting, especially ones that involve cooperation among kids with different abilities.
Categories | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Disabilities: Medical | Disabilities: Auditory | Interfaces: Devices |
Description - Survey what one-handed keyboards are available and how they are used as computer input devices for people with disabilities. How would typing-to-speech compare to ASL to speech as a communication device? In a world where everyone uses "text messaging" on their cell phones and is really good (and fast) at typing on the little keyboards, will people with disabilities benefit?
Categories | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Disabilities: Medical | Interfaces: Devices |
Description - A free, easy to use Morse-code input system that works with any app by synthesizing keystroke events (easy) could be benefinicial to users with physical impairments. How does it compete with Graffiti? It should have the huge advantages only requiring one hand and leaving the eyes free.
Categories | Disabilities: Visual | Disabilities: Auditory | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Disabilities: Medical | Interfaces: Auditory | Interfaces: Visual | Interfaces: Tactile |
Description - Computer interfaces are mostly sequential. Consider telephone menu systems: enter 1 for parts, enter 2 for service, etc. As another example, when you kill an unresponsive program, Windows XP pops up a dialog asking me if you want to send an error report to MS. You must respond to it before proceeding. An alternative user interface strategy (for both sighted and blind) depends on asynchronous alerts and user responses. Think of the underlining of misspelled words in many editors; it occurs sometime after typing and can be corrected (or not) anytime. Emacspeak has some nice features like this. The presence of a footnote associated with a word is indicated by a audible signal played along with the speech for the word without stopping. The listener can respond to the signal by requesting the footnote be followed or ignore it. A project investigating what is known about asynchronous user interfaces and perhaps a prototype implementation would be really interesting and likely result in a paper.
Categories | Disabilities: Cognitive |
Description - Most video games are too hard for kids with cognitive difficulties. About the only approach currently available is to use things like "Game Genie" to "cheat". We'd like an interesting and visually attractive computer game that emphasizes memory and has variable levels of difficulty. This will require an imaginative team willing to do some experimentation and willing to work with potential game players to get ideas. Of course, there are many kinds of impairment and one game will certainly not work for everyone. Our goal will be to make a game that is fun for one or two kids and see if it appeals to a larger audience.
Categories | Disabilities: Cognitive | Social impact: Acceptance | Social impact: Education |
Description - This article discusses a possible population of students who have learning disabilities and also academic gifts. If one or the other is overlooked, school may not meet the needs of the student. The article mentions that neither traditional resource rooms nor an inclusive classroom may be appropriate for these students. This article does not contain many suggestions for solutions, but it is an interesting perspective. Instead of viewing learning disabilities and academic talents as disjoint, they may be more related than we think.
Submitted by Kelly Van Busum
Categories | Disabilities: Cognitive | Social impact: Acceptance | Social impact: Education |
Description - This is an interesting article about several successful businessmen (including Charles Schwab and John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco) who have dyslexia. The article discusses their experiences in school and in business and how dyslexia has influenced their lives positively and negatively.
Submitted by Kelly Van Busum
Categories | Disabilities: Cognitive | Social impact: Education |
Description - This site contains many interesting articles about dyslexia: what dyslexia is, symptoms of it, and where to go for help. There is a link where people can submit techniques they find helpful when managing dyslexia. For example, one person describes distinguishing a lowercase 'b' from a lowercase 'd' by remembering that 'b' looks almost like 'B'. There are also a variety of articles describing teaching methods (some are helpful, some are harmful) used with people with dyslexia. There is a section for dyslexia news, and several articles involving technology related to dyslexia.
Submitted by Kelly Van Busum
Categories | Disabilities: Visual | Disabilities: Auditory | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Disabilities: Medical |
Description - This website is a list of assistive technology companies. Each listing includes the main products of the company and contact information. I think this website may be helpful for students researching present technology regarding their project interests.
Submitted by Christa Wheeler
Categories | Disabilities: Cognitive | Social impact: Acceptance | Social impact: Legal issues |
Description - Outlines the principles of good web-page design for a dyslexic audience
Submitted by Fred Brooks
Categories | Disabilities: Visual | Disabilities: Auditory | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Disabilities: Medical | Social impact: Acceptance | Social impact: Legal issues |
Description - Online book about accessibility.
Submitted by Fred Brooks
Categories | Disabilities: Visual | Disabilities: Auditory | Disabilities: Physical | Disabilities: Cognitive | Interfaces: Visual |
Description - Provides suggestions and descriptions of various ailments. Organized by disability, user group, and technology.
Submitted by Sean Hanlon