ANYWHERE, ANYTIME (PLUS ANYONE) ACCESS TO THE NEXT-GENERATION WWW

With increasing power, miniaturization, and thin-client/NetPC structur es, people will soon be able to access the full network environment wh erever they are. Information access points/appliances will be built in to the walls, incorporated into our working environments, carried and even worn by us, and used as an integral part of most of our daily act ivities. At the same time, as the Internet and information technologie s are being woven into the fabric of education, business, and daily li fe, greater attention is being focused on whether the ordinary person, including those with disabilities, will be able to access and use the se systems. It is interesting that these two seemingly different objec tives have similar solutions. If we design systems which are truly ubi quitous and nomadic; that we can use whether we are walking down the h all, driving the car, sitting at our workstation, or sitting in a meet ing; that we can use when we're under stress or distracted; and that m ake it easy for us to locate and use new services - we will have creat ed systems which are accessible to almost anyone with a physical or se nsory disability. We will also have gone a long way to creating system s that are usable by a large percentage of the population who currentl y find systems aversive or difficult to learn. In addition, strategies and ideas developed for people with disabilities can provide valuable techniques and insights into creating devices for all nomadic compute r users. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.