Title:Development of a special keyboard for the physically disabled
Authors:Masayuki BOOKA(Hyogo Rehabilitation Center)Hidehisa OKU(Okayama University of Science)Takanori AIKAWA(Research Institute of National Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled)Junichi OBATA(National Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled Children)Takuro HATAKEYAMA(Yokohama Rehabilitation Center)Takeshi YATOGO(Nippon University)Tetsuya WATANABE(National Institute of Vocational Rehabilitation)
Proceedings of 12th Japanese Conference of Advancement of Rehabilitation Technology . Vol. 12, pp. 173-178 (August, 1997)
Keyword:the physically disabled, upper extremity disabled people, special keyboard, personal computer(PC), key-guard, time parameter
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed:
Masayuki BOOKA
Hyogo Rehabilitation Center: 515-1-701, Higashi-Futami, Futami-Cho, Akashi-City, Hyogo 674 JAPAN
Tel. +81-78-941-1421


Abstract
It is difficult for upper extremity disabled people to enter letters through keyboard. We thought different form keyboards would be useful for them, so we developed and studied the special keyboards. They can be connected to NEC and IBM computers. The sizes of the keyboards were standard, large-sized (4 types), and small-sized (3 types) and all of them were easy to push and have some kinds of key-guards. We also developed test program that can record and check easily whether it is appropriate or not. From the results comparison and user tests, we thought that the special keyboards would be good for upper extremity disabled people to improve environment of computer operation.