IBM Looking Ahead at IT for Maturing Workers
From: Application Development Trends - 10/12/2005
By: John K. Waters

To address the needs of an aging workforce, IBM is devoting a significant
portion of its research efforts to the unique needs and limitations of older
technology users. Accessibility has become a dominant theme of IBM's
research, which it is showcasing on its alphaWorks Web site. Accessibility
joins visualization and semantics as one of the three research topics into
which all content is organized on its alphaWorks site. One of IBM's new
accessibility-driven technologies, the keyboard optimizer, allows users to
customize their keyboards based on their individual typing style. Users type
a sample, which the keyboard uses to define the accessibility settings,
taking into account factors such as long and short key presses, and a
one-handed or two-handed typing style. Users with motor disabilities can
enjoy greater accessibility to Web pages through IBM's Web adaptation
technology, which can alter a page's font, images, and layout to make it more
readable. The technology underpins WebAdapt2Me, an application already in use
by corporations and educational institutions. People with tremors can
negotiate the movements of a mouse more easily with IBM's mouse smoothing
software, which eliminates excessive movement of the cursor through a similar
technology used in cameras to reduce the effects of hand shaking. IBM has
already provided Mozilla's Firefox with accessibility software, and offers
universities the license to a free disability simulator to help Web
administrators determine how friendly their sites are to the visually
impaired.  

Read the entire article at:
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=11932

Links:

IBM Accessibility Center
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/

alphaWorks
http://alphaworks.ibm.com/

alphaWorks Accessibility
http://alphaworks.ibm.com/topics/accessibility

Keyboard optimizer
http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/keyboardoptimizer

WebAdapt2Me
http://www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/WebAdapt2Me.html

Access Mozilla
http://www.mozilla.org/access/

aDesigner - Disability Simulator
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/adesigner
