Alternative definitions: Assistive Technology, Accessibility Supported (Formal and Sloppy)

Definitions:
Sloppy:
Assistive Technology:  An assistive 
technology is a technology that can be 
used to make some item usable by group 
of people with disabilities.

Formal:
Assistive Technology: An assistive 
technology is a technology that helps 
individuals perceive, operate and / or 
understand a technology that may not 
be usable by individuals with a 
disability who are unaided.

Accessibility Supported:

Accessibility Support for a List of 
Assistive Technologies:
Sloppy Def:  A technology is 
accessibility supported by a list of 
AT's whenever every AT on the list 
works with it.

Formal Def: A technology is 
"accessibility supported by a list of 
assistive technologies" whenever the 
given technology is robust enough to 
permit all of the perception, 
operation and understandability 
accommodations of the every assistive 
technology on the list.

The concept of "accessibility 
supported" without a "list" can be 
defined formally, but it may not be 
practical.

It would look something like:

No Sloppy Def yet...
Formal Def: A technology is 
accessibility supported if its rules 
of perception, operation and 
understandability are communicated 
through a robust formal language 
interface (such as an API) that can be 
programmatically determined.

This latter definition can be measured 
accurately by the structure of the API 
or whatever language interface is 
present.  But, it is harder to 
implement than a project that 
maintains a list of assistive 
technologies.  The danger of such a 
list is exclusion from the list of an 
assistive technology could be a death 
sentence.

Wayne

Received on Wednesday, 6 June 2007 19:29:07 UTC