Disability is characterized by diversity – diversity in ability, diversity of needs, diversity in context, and most importantly diversity of people. Developing broadly applicable technology is important; we should all strive to achieve universal design when possible (and praise the really great designers that do!), but solutions targeting an individual’s specific abilities and context can be just as important.
A challenge for us as a community is to come together to address accessibility problems one at a time, or risk sitting on the sidelines on important problems that we can’t yet solve generally. A challenge for us as researchers is to find the right abstractions and models that allow us to generalize so more people can benefit. Continue reading One-Off Solutions
