universal design by Prof. Dr. Sajjad Mohsin Lecture 15 universal design by Prof. Dr. Sajjad Mohsin

Today’s Outline Today we will look into What is Universal Design? Why Universal Design? Assistive technologies Non-speech audio

What is Universal Design? Universal design is the process of designing products so that they can be used by as many people as possible in as many situations as possible.

Examples I’m having trouble reading smaller print Lefties have trouble with scissors Someone with arthritis can’t open a bottle Chair that a child can’t sit in properly …

Different Environments “Non-average” can mean different environments, context, locations, modalities. May require different interaction methods, rules, models

Different Users Not just about “special” populations like those with particular physical or perceptual challenges. Also about users not part of the original specification, new users, late adopters.

Users with Disabilities Visual impairment Not just about blindness, from age, color issues, limitations Hearing impairment From birth, environment, noise Physical impairment Wide range, unavailable vs. limited, injury Speech impairment Permanent, temporary, noise Dyslexia Autism Dyslexia=a learning disorder marked by a severe difficulty in recognizing and understanding written language, leading to spelling and writing problems. It is not caused by low intelligence or brain damage. Autism= disturbance in psychological development in which use of language, reaction to stimuli, interpretation of the world, and the formation of relationships are not fully established and follow unusual patterns

Dyslexia

Autism A fast growing serious disability. May be caused by Pollution. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior.

… plus … Age groups Cultural differences Older people e.g. disability aids, memory aids, communication tools to prevent social isolation Children e.g. appropriate input/output devices, involvement in design process Cultural differences Influence of nationality, generation, gender, race, sexuality, class, religion, political persuasion etc. on interpretation of interface features e.g. interpretation and acceptability of language, cultural symbols, gesture and colour

Universal Design In HCI terms, this means particularly designing interactive systems that are usable by anyone, with any range of abilities, using any technology platform.

Thought of a good design Universal design is primarily about trying to ensure that you do not exclude anyone through the design choices you make but, by giving thought to these issues, you will invariably make your design better for everyone.

Principles of Universal Design In the late 1990s a group at North Carolina State University in the USA proposed seven general principles of universal design. These principles give us a framework in which to develop universal designs.

Principles of Universal Design Equitable use Flexibility in use Simple and intuitive to use Provide perceptible information Tolerance for error Low physical effort Size and space for approach and use

Equitable Use The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities GUIDELINES : Provide the same means of use for all users: identical whenever possible; equivalent when not. Avoid segregating or stigmatizing any users. Provisions for privacy, security, and safety should be equally available to all users. Make the design appealing to all users.

Flexibility in Use The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. GUIDELINES: Provide choice in methods of use. Accommodate right- or left-handed access and use. Facilitate the user's accuracy and precision. Provide adaptability to the user's pace

Flexibility in Use – Power Point

Simple and intuitive Use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user's experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level GUIDELINES Eliminate unnecessary complexity. Be consistent with user expectations and intuition. Accommodate a wide range of literacy and language skills. Arrange information consistent with its importance. Provide effective prompting and feedback during and after task completion.

Simple and Intuitive – Theater Control

Perceptible Information The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user's sensory abilities

Perceptible Information GUIDELINES Use different modes (pictorial, verbal, tactile) for redundant presentation of essential information. Provide adequate contrast between essential information and its surroundings. Maximize "legibility" of essential information. Differentiate elements in ways that can be described (i.e., make it easy to give instructions or directions). Provide compatibility with a variety of techniques or devices used by people with sensory limitations.

Tolerance for Error The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. GUIDELINES Arrange elements to minimize hazards and errors: most used elements, most accessible; hazardous elements eliminated, isolated, or shielded. Provide warnings of hazards and errors. Provide fail safe features. Discourage unconscious action in tasks that require vigilance

Tolerance for Error Example Undo

Low Physical Effort The design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue. GUIDELINES Allow user to maintain a neutral body position. Use reasonable operating forces. Minimize repetitive actions. Minimize sustained physical effo

Low Physical Effort

Size and Space for Approach and Use Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user's body size, posture, or mobility. GUIDELINES Provide a clear line of sight to important elements for any seated or standing user. Make reach to all components comfortable for any seated or standing user. Accommodate variations in hand and grip size. Provide adequate space for the use of assistive devices or personal assistance

“Designing for Diversity” Requires really understanding the way diverse types of users interact with a system Imagine how your interface is “translated” Different language Modality (screen reader, touch, Braille) Cognitive filter Etc.

Terminology Ability Impairment Disability Handicap Policies, Laws, Regulations, Guidelines People, persons with… Populations vs categories of abilities

Multi-Sensory Systems More than one sensory channel in interaction e.g. sounds, text, hypertext, animation, video, gestures, vision Used in a range of applications: particularly good for users with special needs, and virtual reality  Will cover general terminology speech non-speech sounds handwriting considering applications as well as principles

Multi sensory system for special Kids

Usable Senses The 5 senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) are used by us every day each is important on its own together, they provide a fuller interaction with the natural world Computers rarely offer such a rich interaction Can we use all the available senses? ideally, yes practically – no We can use • sight • sound • touch (sometimes) We cannot (yet) use • taste • smell

Multi-modal vs. Multi-media Multi-modal systems use more than one sense (or mode ) of interaction e.g. visual and aural senses: a text processor may speak the words as well as echoing them to the screen Multi-media systems use a number of different media to communicate information e.g. a computer-based teaching system:may use video, animation, text and still images: different media all using the visual mode of interaction; may also use sounds, both speech and non-speech: two more media, now using a different mode

Visual Impairments How to deal with GUIs? Keyboard vs. mouse use How do they know it is there? “Talking Braille” ATM phone jack Sound output Screen readers, rates, voices, quality Non-speech audio Equipment issues Math, graphs Equations, graphs, tables

Visual Impairments, cont’d What about these?… Equitable use Flexibility in use Simple and intuitive to use Provide perceptible information Tolerance for error Low physical effort Size and space for approach and use

Speech Human beings have a great and natural mastery of speech makes it difficult to appreciate the complexities but it’s an easy medium for communication

Structure of Speech phonemes allophones morphemes 40 of them basic atomic units sound slightly different depending on the context they are in, these larger units are … allophones all the sounds in the language between 120 and 130 of them these are formed into … morphemes smallest unit of language that has meaning.

Speech (cont’d) Other terminology: • prosody • co-articulation alteration in tone and quality variations in emphasis, stress, pauses and pitch impart more meaning to sentences. • co-articulation the effect of context on the sound transforms the phonemes into allophones • syntax – structure of sentences • semantics – meaning of sentences

Hearing Impairment Does access for the blind mean no access for the deaf? Consider how truly multimodal interfaces can work for everyone e.g., Sonification Sandbox The Sonification Sandbox is a project of the Psychology Department's Sonification Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, overseen by Bruce Walker, PhD. http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/research/sonification_sandbox/

Physical Impairments A wide variety of “handicaps” Tremor, dexterity, grip, mobility, balance, strength Solutions need to vary, too Eyegaze control Blinks Text entry like EdgeWrite Brain-computer interfaces EdgeWrite is a new design for text entry which yields methods that are accessible to some people with motor impairments or who are in physically destabilizing situations like walking or riding. Important properties of EdgeWrite include ease of learning due to the similarity of its letters to Roman characters, stability of motion due to tracing along physical edges, and simple implementation on a wide variety of input devices. Studies suggest that EdgeWrite works well when implemented for use with a stylus on a handheld device, a joystick on a power wheelchair, or for a touchpad on a desktop computer. A future implementation will explore desktop text entry using a trackball.

Aging All of the possible difficulties arise: Perceptual, cognitive, motor There are fewer and fewer “low tech” alternatives; forcing seniors into tech Designers often have little experience in the realities of the older (or handicapped or deaf or…)

Audio Non-speech audio For example whistling, humming or hissing for entering data Often useful for visually impaired users Very useful for others too!

Non-Speech Sounds boings, bangs, squeaks, clicks etc. Commonly used for warnings and alarms Evidence shows they are useful Fewer typing mistakes with key clicks Video games harder without sound Language/culture independent, unlike speech

Non-Speech Sounds: Useful? Dual mode displays: information presented along two different sensory channels redundant presentation of information resolution of ambiguity in one mode through information in another Sound good for transient information background status information e.g. Sound can be used as a redundant mode in the Apple Macintosh; almost any user action (file selection, window active, disk insert, search error, copy complete, etc.) can have a different sound associated with it.

Uses of Non-Speech Audio Beeps ‘n’ Bops Peripheral Awareness Sonification Audio Interfaces, Audio Menus Navigation

Beeps ‘n’ Bops Warnings, alerts, status messages Status indicators Error messages Alarms Will they be heard, identified, and understood?

Peripheral Awareness Using sound to communicate information about the environment Compare to information visualization Web server traffic Weather outside Traffic Activity level of colleagues Status of resources (printers, etc.)

Audio Aura Audio Aura Mynatt, Back, & Want Xerox PARC, 1997 “The goal of Audio Aura is to provide serendipitous information, via background auditory cues, that is tied to people’s physical actions in the workplace.” The physical world can be augmented with auditory cues allowing passive interaction by the user. By combining active badges, distributed systems, and wireless headphones, the movements of users through their workplace can trigger the transmission of auditory cues. These cues can summarize information about the activity of colleagues, notify the status of email or the start of a meeting, and remind of tasks such as retrieving a book at opportune times. We are currently experimenting with a prototype audio augmented reality system, Audio Aura, at Xerox PARC. The goal of this work is to create an aura of auditory information that mimics existing background, auditory awareness cues. We are prototyping sound designs for Audio Aura in VRML 2.0. KEYWORDS: Audio, Augmented Reality, Auditory Icons, Active Badge, VRML INTRODUCTION For many people in office environments much of the content of their jobs (e.g. online documents, calendars, email) is contained within computational devices.

StockScape Walker & B. Mauney Georgia Tech, 2004 Continuous soundscape that maps stock price change onto sounds. Deviation from baseline means more sounds. Change upmeans adding animals; changes downmeans adding rain, thunder.

Sonification “Auditory display of quantitative information” Compare to visualization Weather data Stock market data Election results Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to convey information or perceptualize data. Auditory perception has advantages in temporal, spatial, amplitude, and frequency resolution that open possibilities as an alternative or complement to visualization techniques.

Sonification Design Issues Mapping Data dimension --> Display Dollars --> pitch (or distance from x-axis) Polarity Increasing pitch = increasing or decreasing $ ? Scaling Double the pitch = double the $ ? Context Equivalent to tick marks, axes, trend lines Interaction techniques

Audio Interfaces & Menus Audio-only or audio-enhanced interfaces IVRs (phone-based, like airlines) Complete operating systems (Curo) Menus Earcons, auditory icons, spearcons

IVR Phone Based

Auditory Icons Use natural sounds to represent different types of object or action Natural sounds have associated semantics which can be mapped onto similar meanings in the interaction e.g. throwing something away ~the sound of smashing glass Problem: not all things have associated meanings Additional information can also be presented: Muffled sounds if object is obscured or action is in the background Use of stereo allows positional information to be added

SonicFinder for the Macintosh Items and actions on the desktop have associated sounds Folders have a papery noise Moving files – dragging sound Copying – a problem … sound of a liquid being poured into a receptacle rising pitch indicates the progress of the copy Big files have louder sound than smaller ones

Earcons Synthetic sounds used to convey information Structured combinations of notes (motives ) represent actions and objects Motives combined to provide rich information compound earcons multiple motives combined to make one morecomplicated earcon

Earcons (cont’d) Family earcons Pro: Con: similar types of earcons represent similar classes of action or similar objects: the family of “errors” would contain syntax and operating system errors Pro: Earcons easily grouped and refined due to compositional and hierarchical nature Con: Harder to associate with the interface task since there is no natural mapping

Navigation Getting around, for those who cannot look or cannot see Persons with visual impairments Military applications

Summary of Today’s Lecture Universal design is about designing systems that are accessible by all users in all circumstances. Taking account of human diversity in disabilities, age and culture. Universal design helps everyone For example, deaf, working in noisy environment, etc…….

Summary of Today’s Lecture Multi-modal systems provide access to system information and functionality through a range of different input and output channels, exploiting redundancy. Such systems will enable users with sensory, physical or cognitive impairments to make use of the channels that they can use most effectively. Utilizing senses in interactive experience