Ensuring Usability in Interface Design: A Workstation to Provide Usable Access to Mathematics for Visually Disabled Users‪.‬

THE BROAD CONTEXT OF USABILITY Accessibility is a central concept in the literature concerning technology for disabled people. One of the overriding occupational problems faced by wheelchair-users is gaining access to buildings. Many companies have attempted to ameliorate such problems by providing wheelchair ramps. Wheelchair ramps literally afford access. But, they are only a start. There are many examples of buildings with ramps (often tacked on after design, rather than included in the building specification) which are too steep for a person in a wheelchair to use with any ease at all. Other examples of "access" include buildings with relatively shallow ramps that lead to heavily resistant double swinging doors that cannot be opened by the wheelchair-user without the assistance of an attendant or passerby.