The purpose of this document is to provide a common reference point for discussions to be carried out by this study group.
This is a first draft of the document which is prepared based upon discussions at the September 2nd and 3rd meeting of the study group. It is mostly notes at this time. This will be fleshed out with text
Disability is the inability to carry out basic life activities due to one or more functional limitations. A major factor contributing to many peopleās disability is their inability to effectively access and use the technology they encounter in their workplace as well as at home and in their community. Recent advances have allowed products to be designed in a more flexible fashion so that they can be directly used by a wider range of individuals. However, it is not always practical to make all products accessible to all people. Particularly, those with severe or multiple disabilities. In addition, in some work environments it is important that people be able to use special devices to access their computers in order to achieve the efficiently needed to compete effectively in the workplace.
The purpose of this study group is to explore the best way to create a standard mechanism which could be used by individuals with a wide range of disabilities to connect devices that can act as special interfaces (accessors) to standard mass market products so that the accessors can be used as an alternative interface to the mass market products.
NOTE: The following are not necessarily exclusive. They should be thought of as roles or functions - and a single item may fulfill different roles/functions at the same time or at different times.
The following are some of the terms that we came up with at the meeting. Where we came up with potential definitions these are included.
Ability to use a product, service etc.
1. Accessible - It is possible to get to and operate
2. Readily Usable - reasonably usable if you don't have to use it a lot (or in an emergency)
3. Efficient - can you reasonably compete
In carrying out these discussions, in general, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion that sometimes results because people are talking about different types of assistive technologies. In order to alleviate this problem, it is useful to define some of the different types of technologies that are used and their different characteristics. The following definitions are proposed:
Stand alone
assistive technology
(Products that can function on their own - that also act as an interface to other standard products)
Special access peripheral
Interface device designed specifically for use by people with disabilities
(classified as a peripheral because it is not functional as a stand alone device)
E.g. - a head controlled mouse, a magnification program,
Standard device used for
access
Accessories that are not specific to people with disabilities but are used by people with disabilities to access standard products.
e.g. Earphone, X10,
Trackball,
A way to connect one intelligent entity (an accessor) to a standard product in such a way that the accessor is able to act as an alternate interface to the standard product for the user.
- Ideally the protocol supports self adaptation so that accessors that range from very simple to more complex can be automatically accommodated in a plug and play fashion.
- (This is what the study committee decided it was looking to set requirements for or to define.)
An entity (hardware or software) used to access a variety standard electronic products from different manufacturers (hardware, software, service, etc.) which use different input device connection standards. An accessor's input/output must either be converted to look like the input/output of the standard product's standard interface devices - or it must be connected though an Alternative Interface Interaction Protocol.
- an Accessor does not have to be a physical device. It could be a piece of software running on the same or a different device than the product.
A device, function, or a service which is sold. A product is not defined as a physical entity. .
Types of products that this protocol is intended to address
Any information or electronic technology with a human interface
- Information technologies
- Home appliances
- Telecommunication
Anything experienced by the user. (For example, the delay experienced in using the internet while waiting for a page to download would be considered part of the user interface).
New Abstract Interface (ala UIML)
Verbal Map of Standard Interface
Alternate part of the standard interface
There seem to be three categories of alternative interface that we would want the standard to support. (NOTE: The titles for the three categories are working titles)
1) New Abstract Interface
The first category is what might be called a new abstract interface. That is, a person may have an interface that they want to use, and they donāt want to have any vestige of the original product interface. They want to use theirs. With the new abstract interface, the product would need to say, "here are all your choices and here are the information items" and then the accessor would do things like pick from list or pick from group. The accessor makes no assumptions about what the interface on the standard product is. The standard product just says here are the functions available, you pick.
This approach a disadvantage in that a person may be able to use the product, but they may not be able to talk their friend Al here who is looking at the product because the accessor interface renders it in a way, a pick from choice, that makes sense to me. Well, he says look for the itās a pop-down menu called X, I donāt have any pop-down menus.
2) Verbal
Version Of The Standard Interface
The second category would be a verbal version of the standard interface. This is kind of like what screen readers do today. They give you a verbal map of the standard interface and they tell you there are so many objects and there is a field and there is a menu. Now you can communicate with somebody else, but it may not be the most efficient way for you to do things.
3) Alternate
Component (To The
Standard Interface)
The third one is an alternate component (to the standard interface). For example, Christopher Reeves comes up to a touchscreen kiosk, and he doesnāt need to have an alternate display of the kiosk, he can see it. His problem is that he canāt touch it. So, what he wants is an alternate pointing mechanism. Somebody may come up to keyboard who is blind and they donāt have any trouble using the keyboard, the problem is they canāt see the screen. So, they want an alternate display.
We needed a handle for what we are developing. The name of it can be very important to understanding it and to not creating misunderstanding.
Good for communicating, selling, recruiting and making sure that we understand ourselves what we are working on (old and new members as they join).
A set of required behaviors (information and commands) with canonical names
Service Definition (Functions) (Semantics)
Protocol Definition (Language) (Semantics and Syntax)
REMOTE - Good for getting people the idea of a complete second interface.. something they can relate to·. But can be confused with TV remotes
ACCESS - Good for disability focus. Could help with relating it to disability regulations. May give negative impression to people worried about security (already ran into this one).
COMMUNICATION - As in communication protocol· good since it gets across that this is not a port or transport standard but something that runs on top of "wires" of all types.
REQUIREMENTS - that is what we are actually creating
PROTOCOL (a language or set of rules that entities use to communicate with each other) - Sounds more concrete than requirements but is it really what we are creating??? Or are we just creating requirements for other protocols·.
ALTERNATE INTERFACE - this expresses the goal of our work well. Our goal is to allow the creation of alternate interfaces for those who cannot use the standard one (if they have a disability or are in a constrained situation) or who prefer to use another.
UNIVERSAL - gives idea of being flexible and accommodating a wide range of types of interfaces
CROSS MODAL - gives idea that the requirements allow information to be presented in different sensory modalities and operated in different physical modalities. Disadvantage is that it sounds like jargon and needs to be explained before it is understood.
We finally came down to
"Alternate Interface Interaction Protocol"
It expressed the key elements yet did not use terms that were hot buttons for security people (access) and did not use words like "communication protocol" which had different meanings to different groups.
We also decided that we would indeed need to define some sort of "Protocol" unless all other protocols would fail but one. If there were multiple protocols out there, we would need to have a single protocol which assistive (and other?) technologies could use to communicate with the various other protocols. The would then be a mapping from the AIIP to the other protocols.
A number of terms relate to current and past efforts to connect assistive technologies to standard technologies. These are described briefly below.
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/draft-ietf-conneg-requirements-02.txt
The integration of computing into every aspect of life and all the technologies around us.