Project website

Primary Investigator

Email

Institution

Nass, Clifford

nass@stanford.edu

Stanford

Abstract
This is a collaborative research project involving Stanford University, Social Security Administration, Bureau of the Census, and GSA. The immediate goals are to enable partner organizations to accommodate blind and visually impaired workers and to support the ongoing development of smaller and more powerful accessors for the Stanford's Total Access System. The long-term goals included development of new technologies that support disabled federal workers and to transfer those technologies to the private sector.

The proper design and evolution of TAS multi-modal accessors cannot be accomplished without considering input and feedback from users. New accessors must be designed to respond to the needs, abilities, and preferences of users.

For this reason, it is imperative to conduct usability studies, as well as psychological and cultural studies. Economic viability of the TAS is going to depend on acceptance by more than just people with disabilities. Acceptance by aging people, and non-disabled people, such as IT workers who want to increase their productivity, will be imperative. The proposed studies will be conducted in work, home, and school settings. A variety of methods will be used (e.g., lab experiments, field observations, user interviews, questionnaires) and data will be collected in different formats (e.g., behavioral and psychological, qualitative and quantitative). The plan is to conduct the studies in the next three years and to use the results as they are gathered to modify the design and marketing of TAS multi-modal accessors.