How To Design a User Interface For People With Disabilties

1. How To Design a User Interface For People With Disabilties Presented By Edwina Odiwanor Joyce Nganga Mohamed Lamine Konate

2. User Interface Design for people with Disabilities When designing a user interface one should consider a universal design which can be used by anyone no matter their abilities and weaknesses What is a user interface? • A user interface in reference to computers refers to a system that allows humans to interact or carry out tasks either by using machines or computers. Therefore a user interface is everything the user hears ,sees ,touches etc

3. User Interface Design for people with Disabilities What is disability? • Disability is a form of impairement which could either be physical, sensory or cognitve which can cause human incapabilities resulting to different limitations Forms of Disabilities • Visual impairements • Hearing impairement • Physical impairment • Speech impairement • Dyslexia • Autism

4. User interfaces Design for Visually Impairement Visual impairements limits visual access.Appropriate user interfaces could involve: • Use of multimedia interfaces which have sound and touch eg speech, earcons and auditory icons • Touch screens with electronic braille displays • Use sufficient colour contrast for colour blindness people

5. User Interface Design for Hearing Impairement Hearing impairements limits audio access.Appropriate user interfaces involve: • Use of hearing aid facilities • Use of graphical interfaces for better explanations or understanding • Use of gesture recognition to assist in translation • Use textual context in place of auditory narrations

6. User Interface Design for Physically Impairment Physical impairements refers to the inability to movement and control.Approprite interfaces for such disabilty would involve: • The use of reactive keyboards that response to commands executed previously . • Eyegaze systems-tracks eye movement to control the cursor

7. User Interface Design for Speech Impairement With speech impairement appropriate interfaces will involve: • Use speech synthetic in multimedia interfaces with text based context

8. User Interface Design For Dyslexia Dyslexia is a developmental disorder that causes learning difficulties with reading and writing. Appropriate interface design will involve: • Designing interfaces with spell tools • Use animations and simulations • Design interfaces with graphical information in order to suport textual context

9. User Interface Design for Autism Autism limits the ability of communications. This is a disorder that normally affects children. Appropriate interface design could involve: • Designing graphical interfaces in order to enable a sense of imagination and rememberance • Designing audio interfaces as these encourages communication e.g. children with autism can benefit from spoken words as this encourages speech

10. References • Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D.Abowd, Russell Beale, Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd Edition. • Collins dictionary