PHYSICAL DISABILITIES AND COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES: AN ANALYSIS OF IMPAIRMENTS
Andrew Sears, Mark Young, Jinjuan Heidi Feng · Human-Computer Interaction · 2009
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Defining Impairment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Physical Impairments and Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Health Condition-Induced Impairments . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Arthritis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Brain Injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Cerebral Palsy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Missing Limbs or Digits (Amelia or Amputation) . . . . . . . . 73 Multiple Sclerosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Muscular Dystrophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Parkinson’s Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Repetitive Stress Injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Stroke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Spinal Cord Injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Tremors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Locked-In Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Situationally-Induced Impairments and Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 HCI Research and PI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Cerebral Palsy (CP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Impairments of the Hands and Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Impairments in Infants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Significant Speech and Physical Impairments (SSPI) . . . . . 80 Input Using Electrophysiological Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Cursor-Control Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Tongue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Eye and eyelid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Text Entry Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Keyboard-based text entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Speech-recognition-based text entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Eye-gaze-based typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Adoption or Abandonment of Assistive Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 PI Does Not Imply Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 PI Affect Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor Activities . . . . . 87 Basic Actions Can Be Difficult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Standardized Descriptions of Health Conditions and PI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Computing devices are becoming smaller, more mobile, more powerful, more ubiquitous, and less expensive, changing the way people work, shop, communicate, and entertain. As a result, an inability to use these technologies can significantly limit employment, educational, and social opportunities. While computing devices can be convenient tools for traditional computer users, they can also create barriers for individuals with physical, cognitive, or perceptual impairments. For example, individuals with certain types of tremors may experience difficulty using small keyboards. However, a design process that considers the impairments of users can turn these potential barriers into powerful tools that increase employment opportunities, provide enhanced communication capabilities, and enable increased independence (Young, Tumanon, & Sokal, 2000).