Object-oriented programming to build adaptable human-computer interfaces

Research into human-computer interaction has led to a general improvement in accessibility. However, there is a group of people who have not benefited so much from this research. They are people who are so disadvantaged that they are given the label disabled. While mainstream research into human-computer interaction addresses the adaptation of the interface to users with quite subtle individual differences, it usually ignores gross differences which exist-such as whether the user can see a screen or not. There is a need for much more work on how interfaces can adapted to accommodate a much broader range of abilities. The paper demonstrates that such work is facilitated by an object-oriented approach to interface development, and illustrates this thesis with a particular example of an interface which has been designed for use by blind people