Computer Access for People with Disabilities: A Human Factors Approach PDF

Preface

Computer access technology allows people who have trouble using a standard computer keyboard, mouse, or monitor to access the computer. Computer access technology includes relatively inexpensive devices such as trackballs and small-footprint keyboards as well as sophisticated technologies such as automatic speech recognition, eye gaze tracking, and brain-computer interfaces. Computer access technology services are provided by a range of rehabilitation professionals, including rehabilitation engineers, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, special educators, and vocational rehabilitation counselors.

This book is intended for rehabilitation professionals and special educators who provide computer access services to people with disabilities. The material was originally developed for a course on computer access taught at the master's level to rehabilitation engineers and rehabilitation counselors. My goal was to offer practical guidance on how to provide computer access services along with sufficient background knowledge to allow the reader to interpret the research literature.

Because computer and Internet technology changes so rapidly, I have attempted to avoid references to specific products or operating systems whenever possible. Instead, the book emphasizes fundamental concepts that remain true regardless of which specific operating system or product is being used. The book draws on the literature from rehabilitation engineering and occupational therapy, but also from the human-computer interaction (HCI) literature. As McMillan has observed, most work in computing for people with disabilities is "carried out by professionals in education, rehabilitation and communication disorders, usually in isolation from more theoretical research in the field of HCI" [1].