Assistive Technology On-Line: a World Wide Web Server for Assistive Technology
Anna Phalangas, Patrick Demasco, Joanne Pugh Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories University of Delaware/A.I. duPont Institute Wilmington, DE U.S.A
Abstract
This paper describes progress on a new World Wide Web server devoted to Assistive Technology (AT). This service, called Assistive Technology On-Line (http://www.asel.udel.edu/at-online), has been designed to provide useful information on assistive technology to a broad audience and to serve as a gateway to other information services that may be of interest to the AT community. Its information is organized along two major dimensions: 1) Informa- tion type (e.g., organizations); and 2) Technology type (e.g., AAC). In addition a number of tools have been implemented including forms for external users to add information, a search engine, and a calendar manager. The current system while far from com- pleted has a substantial amount of information and has recently been announced in a variety of forums. While AT On-Line has officially been in existence for less than a month, it has had a relatively high access rate and has received positive user comments via a feedback form.
Background
The wide availability of information resources related to Assistive Technology is recognized as ben- eficial to consumers, service providers and other practitioners in the field (3). In recent years, a greater amount of information has been available electroni- cally including databases, multimedia CD-ROMs, and bulletin board services (2). One channel for information dissemination that has experienced unprecedented growth for the disability interest com- munity is the Internet. Services such as electronic mail, newsgroups, gopher and the World Wide Web (WWW) provide a wealth of information and a means for individuals to easily communicate on a variety of issues.
Services such as the Cornucopia of Disability Infor- mation (6) provide a wide range of information on disabilities. In addition, there are hundreds of news- groups and listservers focusing on disability issues (4). Finally, Internet-based resources that focus spe- cifically on topics in Assistive Technology are begin- ning to appear (7). Despite this, there is still a need for an Internet-based information service that is both specific to Assistive Technology and comprehensive in its approach.
Approach
Assistive Technology On-Line is a new WWW server that focuses specifically on AT. Its major design goals are the following:
· Provide useful AT information to a broad and varied constituency that includes consumers, ser- vice providers, researchers and others interested in the field of AT.
· Serve as a gateway to other information providers especially those specific to AT.
· Provide a place where people and organizations can post useful information such as meetings and announcements.
In addition to these overall goals, concerns such as general "ease-of-use" and accessibility of materials are of primary importance.
Design and Development
Organization - To date, the focus of AT On-Line has been primarily on overall structure and content. There were numerous discussions with potential users to determine what would be the most useful organization of material. The resulting structure offers two immediate ways to access information from the home page: by Technology Type and by Information Type.
Technology Type contains categories that relate to specific assistive technologies (e.g., prosthetics) or functional area (e.g., education). It currently consists of the following:
· Adaptive Toys/Games
· Augmentative Communication
· Cognitive Aids
· Computer Access
· Education/Learning
· Environmental Controls
· Home Modifications
· Mobility
· Positioning and Seating
· Prosthetics/Orthotics
· Recreation/Sports
· Robotics
· Self-Care
· Sensory Aids
· Transportation
· Worksite Modifications
Information Type consists of categories that cut across the field such as policy or categories that rep- resent a specific type of information such as publica- tions. It consists of the following categories:
· Devices
· Services
· Government Policy (including funding)
· Federally Funded Programs relating to AT
· Research
· Organizations
· Papers and Publications
· Index of Internet Resources on AT & Disability
This approach to organization has a number of advantages and disadvantages that result primarily from the fact that information may be duplicated within each major group. For example, a description of ISAAC (the International Society of Augmenta- tive and Alternative Communication) appears both under the Organizations category and under the AAC category.
The primary advantages of a two-way organizational approach are:
· Greater coverage of information. For example, if technology type were used exclusively, it would be difficult to find suitable locations for informa- tion that cuts across the field (e.g., RESNA)
· Grouping of information that can appeal to a wider range of user goals. For example, a user new to the field might want to look at the range of available information on a specific technology, whereas an expert user looking for the RESNA phone number might move more quickly through the alphabetical listing.
The disadvantages are:
· The increased work-load of creating and main- taining duplicated information-although in the medium of the Web, information that appears duplicated often is a result of cross-links;
· A potential for user confusion because of multi- ple navigation paths to the same information. However, this is always a concern when design- ing hypermedia.
This organizational structure will continue to evolve and be subject to user feedback as well as analysis of usage statistics. Currently many of the categories are unfilled, but that situation will certainly change through the addition of information by both project staff and external users.
Page Format - The implementation of pages within AT On-Line is driven by existing Web design guide- lines including those for general usability (5) and guidelines to maximize accessibility (8). In particu- lar, the use of graphics in the system is restrained and when used is supplemented with alternate descrip- tions.
AT On-Line uses a consistent page layout. Each page consists of a heading, a navigation strip above and below the main body of information, and an acknowledgment section at the very bottom. The navigation section consists of small rectangular graphics (with alternate text) that are labeled Home, Up, Search, Add, and Help. Up navigates to the next level above in the document hierarchy; Home traverses back to the home page; and Help offers information about the navigation buttons and other system features. Search allows the user to search the database, and Add allows users to add information to AT On-Line. These features are discussed in the next section.
Additional Tools - There are a number of additional tools that have been developed for the server that supplement the basic document collection. The Search Facility enables users to locate information throughout the whole server by entering key words. The search engine returns an ordered list of pages that contain instances of the key words. This tool was implemented using SWISH (Simple Web Index- ing Systems for Humans), wwwais, and Perl scripts.
The Calendar Manager provides a listing of events such as conferences and meetings relevant to Assis- tive Technology and Disability. Each page shows all events that are occurring for a given month. If the number of events becomes sufficiently large, search forms will be added that will let a user specify some criteria (e.g., location) for the event. The calendar manger has been implemented in C++ and Perl.
Finally, the Add feature is an extremely important component of AT On-Line. Given the scope of the AT field, it is virtually impossible for any individual or organization to comprehensively produce all rele- vant information. Consequently nearly every page in AT On-Line has an Add button that links to a con- text-sensitive form designed for the particular area of the server (e.g., the calendar). User-submitted mate- rial is edited and verified by project staff and subse- quently added to the server.
An information exchange forum is another tool of future consideration. This tool would be similar to listservers or newsgroups which allow discussions between users. FAQs (frequently asked questions) could be stored and accessed. Furthermore, some type of consistent referral system could be estab- lished for specific areas of information.
Evaluation
Although the World Wide Web has gained tremen- dous popularity there is still a need to determine its efficacy as an information channel particularly for AT professionals and consumers. As our server con- tinues to evolve, we intend to evaluate it further and use these evaluations to refine its design. The server has been officially operating for approximately one month. Advertising its presence on the Internet has only begun in the last week. Despite this, there has been a surprising amount of traffic.
From November 13, 1995 to December 5, 1995, there have been 2,305 pages accessed from outside our organization. A "visit" is defined as any number of page accesses from a unique address on a given day. While this metric is not 100% accurate, it is a reasonably close measure of the site activity. During this period of 22 days, AT On-Line has had 462 vis- its. Of those 462 visits, 400 of them are from unique addresses. This indicates that 62 visits are either repeat visits or visits from the same site but by a dif- ferent person.
Several individual users have come across the server and have sent us their comments. All responded with very positive feedback encouraging this effort and the provision of more information. There back- grounds were: AT provider, parent of a child with a disability, and an Occupational Therapist.
Further evaluation would be useful and we eventu- ally would like to run a statistical analysis of web visits to our site and its particular sections over a longer period of time. Another thing that could be of benefit would be to generate survey forms that could offer us more feedback with respect to particular issues. Questions on the survey could request the user's purpose for accessing AT On-Line, whether the information they sought was available, and how they learned of our site.
Discussion
The World Wide Web as an information medium is nothing short of phenomenal. Consider that AT On- Line, which is in its infancy and has had virtually no advertising is averaging approximately 21 visits a day. In comparison, a paper describing AbleData published in June 1994 reported 5,960 information requests or 16.33 per day (1).
We hope that AT On-Line will be a useful informa- tion resource on the Internet. To do so, it will be important that its structure and content continue to evolve to reflect trends on the Internet. For example, as other groups continue to publish information on specific AT topics such as the Assistive Technology Funding Page (6), we will need to reevaluate our coverage of the area and perhaps point the reader directly to other servers. However, it is important to understand that there is ample room for a variety of editorial viewpoints on similar materials: this is part of the essence of the Internet.
References
[1] Lynn Bryant, Alynne Landers, and Mary Aist. Anal- ysis of ABLEDATA information requests: Implica- tions for assistive technology information dissemination. In Proceedings of the RESNA '94 An- nual Conference, 1994. RESNAPress, 1994
[2] Albert M. Cook and Susan M. Hussey. Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice. Mosby, Saint Louis, MO, 1995.
[3] Alexandra Enders and Marian Hall, editors. Assistive Technology Sourcebook. RESNA Press, 1990.
[4] Jim Lubin. Disabilities/health/medical newsgroups [web page]. URL: http://www.eskimo.com/ jlubin/ disabled/usenet.html. [Accessed 5 Dec 1995].
[5] Alan Richmond. Developing a high-end web site: Design and style [web page]. URL: http:// WWW.Charm.Net/web/Style/. [Accessed 5 Dec 1995].
[6] State University of New York at Buffalo. Cornuco- pia of disability information [gopher page]. URL: gopher://val-dor.cc.buffalo.edu/. [Accessed 5 Dec 1995].
[7] United Cerebral Palsy Associates. Assistive technol- ogy funding [web page]. URL: http://www.assist- tech.com/atfsc.html. [Accessed 5 Dec 1995].
[8] Gregg C. Vanderheiden. Design of HTML pages to increase their accessibility to users with disabilities: Strategies for today and tomorrow [web page]. URL: http://trace.wisc.edu/HTMLfide. [accessed 5 Dec 1995].
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Rehabilitation Engi- neering Research Centers on: 1) Augmentative and Alternative Communication (Grant Number H133E30010); and 2) Rehabilitation Robotics (Grant Number H133E30013) of the National Insti- tute on Disability Rehabilitation Research of (U.S. Department of Education). Additional support has been provided by the Nemours Research Programs.
Author address
Anna Phalangas Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories A.I. duPont Institute 1600 Rockland Road, P.O. Box 269 Wilmington, Delaware 19899 USA Internet: phalanga@asel.udel.edu
Assistive Technology On-Line is located at:
http://www.asel.udel.edu/at-online