Introduction

Objective

The objective of the research is to understand and document actions/behaviors that practitioners involved in design or procurement activities in relation to their use of universal design resources.

The needs of end-users of universally designed electronic products, which includes all people but particularly for our interest the needs of people with disabilities, will be met sooner with universal design resources which are as clear as possible, brief, and easy-to-use. The research activities of this project will be an innovative step towards understanding how this can be achieved, by generating dissemination materials which may help those in academia and standards/guidelines committees improve the design of their resources to meet practitioner needs.

A systems analysis approach has been employed in the design of research activities. Through observation and measurement, the relevant elements of the system will be examined.

Background

In disability access to technology, and universal design, we have a wealth of funding, research, and projects. The knowledge base grows with each year, but as yet there is limited influence on the design of mainstream electronic products. The proof of this is a lack of universally designed products available for consumers, in public environments, and for home and office use. In the US, recent universal design legislation has given a greater impetus for manufacturers to incorporate access features into standard products, but legislative measures and policies do not bring about change; people do. The people who have the greatest degree of control over what consumers have available to them from the electronics industry are the designers and other decision-making product development personnel, such as marketing departments and executive steering committees.

The technological landscape is constantly changing and evolving. At the same time there is an ongoing employment problem that has been called a "social disaster for the working-aged population with disabilities" [1]. US employment of people with disabilities is approximately 31%, compared to 85% of the non-disabled population [2]. Thus, there is a need to explore all avenues of improvement to the universal design field because of the promise it holds for enabling people with disabilities to participate in the workforce on a more equitable level. Academic R&D efforts in this field will be helped by a thorough systematic assessment of the needs of the industry and government-based recipients of their guidelines. It is accepted that academic and government experts are highly knowledgeable about end-users, but there is also recognition that "there is still much to be done in order to establish an industrial environment favourable to user interface for all [UD]" [3]. Thus, the underlying premise of this proposal is that there not been enough introspection within the field to date in terms of appropriateness of resources for the intended audiences. Given the relative size of the industry and government sectors versus the size of the universal design academic sector, the need for improved quality of outputs is self-evident.