Personalisation meets accessibility: Towards the design of individual user interfaces for all

Abstract

Current accessibility guidelines are composed to allow users with special needs to more easily and comfortably access the Internet. However, most of the guidelines are written with both a 'standard' device and a 'standard' use context in mind, which is the user sitting in front of a desktop computer, in a non-mobile situation at home or at work. This approach does not take into account the likely possibility that an individual who happens to have a certain limitation may also have other personal needs, a certain type of behaviour or activities that require a specific type of support. In this position paper, we plead for a more fundamental approach of dealing with Internet accessibility for people with special needs. We claim that a person with a special need does not differ from a 'regular' individual, in the sense that they are both users who are trying to accomplish a certain task in a certain use context using a certain device, who may have their own personal requirements for support. One could state that in this way accessibility and personalisation are intertwined to result in an optimal, individual user experience, thereby making optimal use of technologies that are currently available ((dedicated) devices, user interface technologies and assistive technologies). © Springer-Verlag 2004.