Accessibility and Usability

Interactive media and new media technologies often come with a steep price tag, and I don't just mean dollars. Besides the acquisition cost, the price to be paid often involves a steep learning curve, buggy software, and other pains associated with living on the "bleeding edge." So that's why we're going to spend a week talking about accessibility and usability. Accessibility focuses on making interactive media technology and programming content available to the widest possible audience while usability can be defined as "the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system." In preparation for class this week, read the earlier blog post that still, three years later, captures some of the important themes. Also read the short document, Why Usability?, in the Course Docs folder for this week.