Rethinking information behavior in the context of universal design
Wondwossen Mulualem Beyene, Katriina Byström · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) · 2017
Universal design represents the idea of designing products and services to be accessible and usable to all, including to persons with disabilities. Its intent in the design of information systems could be understood as tackling user diversity, which relates it to part of studies in human information behavior. Both areas share concerns of users, context, and technology diversity in their respective undertakings. This conceptual paper analyzes the overlaps in the context of each research direction and highlights the challenges that need to be tackled so that their concerted efforts could enhance the design of accessible and usable information systems. It also attempts to reexamine the field of information behavior and explore its potential for providing much-needed “human input” to universal design endeavors which have been driven mainly by sets of guidelines and technical specifications.