List three ways that analysts can improve task or interface design to help, respectively, a person who is visually impaired, hearing impaired, or mobility impaired.

What will be an ideal response?

The analyst can improve the interface design to help a visually impaired person by considering the length of the distance from display to the person; the angle of the display in relation to the person viewing it; the size and uniformity of the characters; the brightness, contrast, balance, and glare of the screen; and whether a display is blinking or stable. For people who are blind or who have low vision, use Braille keyboards as well as special speech reading software. For low vision people, use screen magnifiers. For people who lack certain perceptual sensitivity, test the colors you are choosing to make certain that they can be easily distinguished from one another.

The analyst can improve the interface design to help a hearing impaired person by considering the noise level in the work place, such as noisy printers. For users who experience impaired hearing, ensure that the documents and screens you design include access to written versions of the audio material. You might design tasks where headphones can be successfully used.

The analyst can improve the interface design to help a mobility impaired person by considering speech input rather than keyboarding. New advances in biomedical engineering permit mobility-impaired users to move the cursor on the screen by breathing into a tube or by directing the cursor to the desired spot on the screen by looking at that spot or even, in some highly specialized interfaces, by thinking about where the cursor should move.