More Than Screen Deep Toward Every-Citizen Interfaces to the Nation's Information Infrastructure (1997) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
On Selected Population Groups
On Selected Population Groups
Pages 395-410
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From page 395... ...
We must work toward democratizing access to effective use of networking technology by all Americans who are capable of benefiting from its use. We need to provide the underserved not only with access to these potentially empowering information resources but also support in their use through education, training, and acculturation.
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From page 396... ...
INTERNET USE BY LOW-INCOME FAMILIES A recent study conducted from December 1994 to lanuary 1996 probed the barriers, benefits, and perceived worth of the Internet to six low-income urban families in Florida, a group representative of the traditionally underserved and informationally disadvantaged population (Bier, 1996~. The researchers asked what these families would actually do on-line given unrestricted Internet access in their homes.
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It has proved engaging to both male and female students of widely differing ages, backgrounds, and ability levels. The most interesting results have come from the inner-city population, where students who had learned very little from a conventionally taught biology class learned a great deal about complex genetic processes working with GenScope and used their new knowledge effectively to accomplish a variety of analytical and constructive tasks.
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From page 398... ...
The stunted development of literacy skills among the inner-city high school students severely limited their social participation and learning opportunities, despite their inherent intellectual abilities. Effective utilization of the NII, no matter how rich its user interface and information resources, will require that its users bring a modicum of literacy.
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Major federal initiatives such as the School-to-Work Opportunities program and the Advanced Technology Education program have been created to address this critical need. However, these efforts will be severely hampered if the country's massive adult illiteracy problem is not solved.
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For most adult illiterates a major obstacle to effective reading development lies in two simple facts the human resources do not exist to provide the teaching support that is needed, and there is no way to adequately increase their number to provide such support during the next several years. A sufficient force of trained professionals and paraprofessionals at the level of expertise required cannot be developed, even with a massive injection of funding.
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The training sessions will involve the use of workplace literacy materials, including interactive simulations, games, and extended stories, gradually increasing in the level of challenge and complexity. The functional literacy tasks will be based on those defined by the National Adult Literacy Survey, particularly those in the first three levels (e.g., interpreting bus or airline schedules; following written and illustrated instructions from a manual or display for such tasks as repairing a paper jam in a copying machine)
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1995. Electronic communication, Department of Education discussion group on a National Technology Plan, March 20, Kirk Winters, moderator.
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Over 70 percent of these children come from families whose annual income is below $20,000 and many receive government services such as those described above. SURVEYING THE USER COMMUNITY I conducted an informal survey of this user community to help understand its characteristics and needs.
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CONSIDERATIONS FOR USER INTERFACE DESIGN Based on this survey I have identified several issues and concerns that should be considered when developing user interfaces. Many of these, of course, will apply to other communities as well.
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SUMMARY This paper explores the design of user interfaces for systems that provide electronic access to government services. Since these systems exist to serve low-income populations, I conducted an informal survey of one low-income population to understand their needs.
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low-cost translation and conversion of content, and (3) flexible software architectures and interaction patterns.
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From page 407... ...
In the case of the latter, an additional audio track is added to the master video and delivered to the end-user via an auxiliary audio channel (the Second Audio Program) on stereo televisions and video cassette recorders.
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From page 408... ...
Computer manufacturers are now building caption displays into their "personal computer/televisions" with the added capability of downloading caption data for archiving and indexing purposes. And researchers in the field of digital video storage have long been excited about the use of captions as indices for large-scale video databases for research, archiving, and production uses.
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From page 409... ...
Since the DVD format has mostly been designed in Japan, the text is being created through bit-mapped graphics files, not ASCII text as in broadcast closed captioning. This has resulted in many unforeseen design flaws: the inability of a DVD player to address the closed-captioning circuitry in television sets, the inability to flexibly change fonts or type sizes, and the inability to use the text as a search engine.
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From page 410... ...
Incorporation of new access standards into digital media formats (such as QuickTime, Active Video, and RealAudio) will facilitate the ability of low-end browsers to display incorporated access technologies.
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