Justin B.

Vallescas December 8, 2019

IT-180 IT-12

Considering Human Limitations, Disabilities, and Design (HCI)

All humans have limitations in their physical capabilities. Some are immediately visible, others
are not. When designing from an HCI (Human Computer Interaction) perspective, you start
realizing that limitations are often discussed in terms of disabilities. The application of HCI to
supporting and enhancing the physical capabilities of humans is one of the most promising
application areas. Strides in biomedical engineering mean that there is research to support the
blind or those with low vision, those who are deaf or have impaired hearing, and people with
limited mobility. When accommodations for disabled people are necessary, there are many
sources to examine and many assistive devices to consider. For people who are blind or who
have low vision, there are braille keyboards as well as special speech software that reads Web
pages and other documents aloud. There are also screen magnifiers that fit over a display to
magnify the entire screen. For users who experience impaired hearing, you can make sure that
the documents and screens you design include access to written versions of the audio material.
Alternatively, you might design tasks where headphones can be successfully used.

However well or poorly designed, it stands as the representation of the system and, by reflection,
your competence as a systems analyst. A well-designed interface improves the fit among the
task, the technology, and the user. Your goal must be to design interfaces that help users and
businesses get the information they need in and out of the system by addressing the following
objectives:
1. Matching the user interface to the task.
2. Making the user interface efficient.
3. Providing appropriate feedback to users.
4. Generating usable queries.
5. Improving the productivity of computer users.
Explanation :

Technology is paving towards our world this 21st century, this basically means our
world is almost covered with technology. Base on my research on the first page I can say that
the physical limitations can really affect the interactive system designs. Not all human can do
everything some are not capable because of their physical limitation such as blind or low
visions, impaired hearing and disabled persons. Because of these the human computer
interactions or the interactive system designs should adjust for them so that these people can
also use technology in their daily lives or they can use this for their jobs. The creators or the
innovators will consider these human limitation in creating an interactive system designs. It is
important to create an system that can help disabled persons to foster their skills and develop
their productivity in their jobs. Just for example, there is an application that recently saw in an
article that can help people having physical disabilities. The application is called Assistive
Touch, it offers virtual buttons that allow users to navigate a device without actually having to
touch it because in the app there are virtual home buttons, back buttons, screenshot buttons,
and volume buttons – even turning the device is easy to perform , activating smarthphone
operations are much easier.

Works Cited
w3computing. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.w3computing.com/systemsanalysis/considering-
human-limitations-disabilities-design/.