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

Received on Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:03:38 UTC