Web page development

Following note was sent in February. The site is at
http://www.ablelinktech.com

The company is developing software to be used by persons with mental
retardation or cognitive disabilities. I asked for details on what they
were doing and what is needed on the web to meet his customers' needs. 

I suspect Steve will be as happy to anser anyone else's questions as he did
mine.

				Anne


>Reply-To: <steve@assess.net>
>From: "Steven Stock-AbleLink" <steve@assess.net>
>To: <apembert@erols.com>
>Subject:  Web page development
>Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 10:37:21 -0700
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>
>Hello Again Anne
>
>Yes, our browser will integrate a screen reader to help people with mental
>retardation comprehend web content. We are similarly developing an
>complimentary email application that will also use screen reading technology
>to comprehend incoming email, along with simple interface to record,
>compress and attach an audio file to compose and send outgoing email.  As
>these examples illustrate, our focus in the past 10 years of conducting R &
>D has been to develop technologies that help people with cognitive
>challenges to be more independent.  There are many software programs that
>teach things like reading and writing, and that is of the utmost importance,
>but our goal is to develop tools that do not depend on literacy skills for
>those who "don't get it."  We do include and promote text on-screen, but it
>is supplementary to our multimedia approaches to encourage residual
>learning.
>
>In regards to your last question about advocating for illustrated content to
>improve comprehension, I'm not sure in what context that is.  What
>guidelines is your group developing?  Who for? We use development techniques
>that are graphics-heavy along with extensive audio instructions that "guide
>the user to the next-most-likely step" in a software interface.  For
>instance a standard technique for us is to put a picture on a button, but
>then also to trigger a computer-generated audio prompt that refers to the
>picture (e.g., "Now click the button with the envelope on it.")  While that
>applies nicely to desktop software, many of our established development
>techniques are not available when developing web-based applications or
>pages. I guess the short answer is to include graphics to the degree that
>they do not alter the fundamental nature or purpose of the web site.  We
>talk about the concept of "partial participation" in some of our literature,
>the idea that lower functioning individuals may not be able to independently
>use all of a software program or web site, but that they can be taught to at
>least use parts of it and facilitated through the rest.
>
>Please tell me more about what you are doing.  I'm guessing you have been
>there, but if not our web site is:
>
>				www.ablelinktech.com
>
>Thanks again for your interest, look forward to hearing from you again
>
>Steve
>
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Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com

http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

Received on Wednesday, 25 April 2001 17:22:02 UTC