Non-traditional inputs

Sorry scouts, no fancy analogy for these devices. The keyboard is a fundamental device to computing. How does it work when that isn’t available to someone with an impairment? Other means of input are needed. Granted a lot of these are rarer than others, but please keep these in mind.

Again, old broken record over here, but keep your audience in mind. If you are building a website with folks who don’t have arms, think of ways they can interact with it using speech, feet, or even eye tracking software. If you have the budget, get these devices and use them with your site. It’ll be mind blowing to see how easy or hard it is to use.

  • On-screen keyboards

    Keyboards that are on-screen can be either interacted with through the mouse and clicking on the keys or using a touchscreen if the users' laptop is equipped
    with that.

  • Word prediction software

    Similiar to what one uses during texting on a phone, predicts the word you are typing. Software like this can be used to help folks using a computer that typically would have trouble.

  • Speech recognition

    Should be self-explanatory: speech that is recognized by a computer. There's software on the market that allows people to speak to computers to command them.

  • Eye tracking software
    and hardware

    Eye tracking is measuring where one is looking or the motion of an eye. It can be rigged up to see where the eye has moved and whether or not those movements correspond to computer actions.

  • Braille surfaces

    A keyboard specifically designed for those with visual disabilities. Helps them insert text into a computer and with the aid of a screen reader, those can be paired together to help a
    blind user.

  • Feet controlled devices

    One can buy foot pedals to hook up to a computer and map actions to it so that the computer can take action. Say the user hooks it up to the tab key to move through a site or the enter key to submit data to a site.

Scout Review

  • Know your audience
  • Remember some of these tools in the back of your mind
  • These are edge cases, but if you know your user base, you know whether or not you need to keep these things in mind
A badge.

Way to go! Nice badge scout.

Using your feet, true story. Keep that in mind.

Previous: Keyboard support » Up next: Visible Interactions »