For more information
Gregg Vanderheiden, po@trace.wisc.edu
Al Gilman, asgilman@access.digex.net
The Web has made technology pervasive and government- and private sector-led initiatives are fast making make the Internet even more a part of our daily lives. Studies indicate that use of computers in the classroom may help children absorb complicated academic concepts more quickly. Businesses have discovered that electronic commerce cuts through geographic barriers to the marketplace and may 
revitalize flagging but valuable industries. Long lines to receive government services are becoming a thing of the past as they are delivered via online mechanisms.
But what if, for any reason, you can't see the screen to acquire the information? What if you can't use a mouse to point-and-click your way through online procedures? Essentially, you're left out of the computing revolution.
"There is a community of users whose needs aren't served by much of current technology," says Gregg Vanderheiden, director of the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The Center focuses on making technologies such as kiosks, ATMs, hand-held electronic personal assistants, computers, and the Web more accessible to people with all types of disabilities. "If you are blind, have low vision, are deaf, are deaf-blind, and/or have physical and cognitive disabilities, you should still be able to use technology to gain access to the information and services that are available to other users."
Accessibility is an immediate concern when considering how information is presented online. "The Web is proliferating at the rate of millions of new sites added daily," says Vanderheiden. "As scripting technology for the Web becomes more sophisticated--including use of Java, Dynamic HTML, and more image maps and graphics as links--the Web can also become increasingly inaccessible to those who rely on assistive technology to read the page to them."
Inability to read from a screen may not be just the result of disability, either, Vanderheiden points out. "As we pursue ubiquitous computing capability, we're investigating delivery mechanisms that could be used in the car, or while you were out rollerblading, or involved in any number of other scenarios that would keep your eyes otherwise occupied," he says. In research and education, assistive technologies may be used to read descriptive text while an image changes dynamically on the screen.
All these scenarios point out the need for broad usability in applications. "People with disabilities are a valuable stress test for flexibility and adaptability," says Vanderheiden. "Many times a design feature--which only comes to notice when it blocks access for blind or deaf users--is actually silently degrading the usability of the interface by many other people, without the developer even knowing it." The Trace Center promotes the concept of universal design, and has developed procedures for avoiding inadequate usability of products through early and systematic use of diverse user scenarios in the design phase. These principles also facilitate access by mobile computer users and intelligent electronic agents.
The PACI program offers Trace the opportunity to integrate principles of universal design into technology and applications development within advanced computational science and networking. "Many of the advanced server capabilities integrated into the PACI infrastructure are highly specialized," says Vanderheiden. "The more specialized the server capabilities, the more their means of connecting with users needs to be robust and flexible to maintain any sort of user volume. As PACI participants are developing architectural principles and strategies that make tailored interaction environments easy to construct from generic capabilities, they're making it easier to build client-centered environments that adapt to end-users' preferences and needs, including special needs."
The Trace Center was founded in 1971 to address the communications needs of people who are nonspeaking and have severe disabilities. The Center was an early leader and innovator in the field that came to be known as "Augmentative Communication." Among its early achievements was the development of the first portable, user-programmable electronic communication device for nonspeaking people.
Since that time, the Trace Center has used its visibility to spur discussion of and attention to users' special needs among government, industry, and academia. In 1984, starting with a White House meeting on the topic, the Center served as coordinator for the nation-wide Industry-Government Initiative on Computer Accessibility. Guidelines developed by this initiative have been widely used by computer companies both as design guidelines and as a yardstick for measuring their products' capacity to accommodate users with disabilities. The Trace Center has also worked with computer companies to integrate disability access features into their standard, mass-marketed products. As a result of this work, disability access features are now incorporated into the Macintosh OS, DOS, IBM OS/2, UNIX/X Window system, Microsoft Windows 95, and Windows NT. Recently, the Center's software development and organizing efforts led to the Cooperative Electronic Library on Disability, currently in its 9th edition, which is disseminated on CD-ROM s "Co-Net."
On the research and development front, Trace has focused on information kiosk design, talking touchscreen technology, accessible Web graphical interfaces, and infrared linking systems. They're currently investigating user interfaces such as keypads, noises and voices, and on-screen menus and instructions, as well as how tactile sensation may aid symbol interpretation among blind users.
They also develop and disseminate design guidelines and participate in the development of electrical and electronic standards, including electrical interface transducer standards, general input device interconnection standards, and serial wheelchair control interface standards.
According to Vanderheiden, the end goal of Trace's efforts in innovation and recommendation is "to create the kind of advanced computing architecture that is needed so we can indeed have an every-citizen interface to the information infrastructure of the future."