Fw: Definition of Assistive Technology

Here is what I sent (with some changes) to Jan. 

Barry A. Feigenbaum, Ph. D.


This message sent with 100% recycled electrons
----- Forwarded by Barry Feigenbaum/Austin/IBM on 08/09/2007 11:16 AM 
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Barry Feigenbaum/Austin/IBM
08/08/2007 05:17 PM

To
Jan Richards <jan.richards@utoronto.ca>
cc

Subject
Re: Definition of Assistive Technology





I suggest removing:

Mainstream software applications communicate with assistive technologies 
via accessibility platform architectures.

and adding it to the "accessibility platform architecture" definition. 
Here it is a comment, not a part of the definition.

I suggest this addition:
A user agent that provides services to meet the requirements of users 
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by the mainstream 
software applications ++or other mainstream user agents++.


My general qualm with most AT definitions (such as above) is that they try 
to exclude services provided by the host OS, the GUI runtime, the 
application itself or other user agents.  To me an AT is:

Electronic Assistive Technology: Any computer software and/or hardware 
technology/feature that assists a user that happens to need$$/want some 
adaptation of the user interface to a computer system. An AT may be 
provided by the computer HW or an attachment, the host OS, the UI runtime, 
the application in use, the primary** user agent, any add-on (or secondary 
or plug-in) user agents alone or in any combination.

Note: adaptation of the UI is a key part of the definition.  If its just 
part of the application's function, its not an AT.  Generality this does 
not make a feature a non-AT; to me zoom and keyboard accelerators are 
general purpose but still ATs. For example I use zoom to < and > 100% a 
lot for and I don't consider myself as having a vision disability and thus 
needing an AT while others may require zoom to use the application, so it 
is an AT to them.

I add electronic as glasses or a hand held magnifying glass are an AT for 
sight impaired. A hearing aid is same for hearing loss, but we don't 
usually intent to include those types of ATs. To me the often provided 
Zoom function is an AT (granted a limited scope one).

** I think primary is better than mainstream.  Why is (say) IE mainstream 
and (say) JAWS not!
$$ such as a person with a disability





Jan Richards <jan.richards@utoronto.ca> 
Sent by: w3c-wai-au-request@w3.org
08/08/2007 02:03 PM

To
WAI-AUWG List <w3c-wai-au@w3.org>
cc

Subject
Definition of Assistive Technology







Another definition...

I think we should add a definition for "Assistive Technology". We use 
the term quite a bit, but without a definition, which both UAAG and WCAG 
have. Below is my suggestion. It is similar to that used by UAAG and 
WCAG, but uses the term "software application" rather than "user agent" 
in a couple of places.

---

Assistive Technology:
A user agent that provides services to meet the requirements of users 
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by the mainstream 
software applications. Such services include alternative presentations 
(e.g., as synthesized speech or magnified content), alternative input 
methods (e.g., voice), additional navigation or orientation mechanisms, 
and content transformations (e.g., to make tables more accessible). 
Mainstream software applications communicate with assistive technologies 
via accessibility platform architectures. Examples of assistive 
technologies that are important in the context of this document include 
the following: screen magnifiers, and other visual reading assistants, 
which are used by people with visual, perceptual and physical print 
disabilities to change text font, size, spacing, color, synchronization 
with speech, etc in order improve the visual readability of rendered 
text and images;

- screen readers, which are used by people who are blind to read textual 
information through synthesized speech or braille;
- text-to-speech software, which is used by some people with cognitive, 
language, and learning disabilities to convert text into synthetic speech;
- voice recognition software, which may be used by people who have some 
physical disabilities;
- alternative keyboards, which are used by people with certain physical 
disabilities to simulate the keyboard;
- alternative pointing devices, which are used by people with certain 
physical disabilities to simulate mouse pointing and button activations.

Note 1: Mainstream user agents may also provide services directly that 
meet the requirements of users with disabilities.
Note 2: This definition is based on User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 
1.0 Glossary.


---

Cheers,
Jan