Universal Usability: Pushing Human-Computer Interaction Research to Empower Every Citizen

The goal of universal access to information and communication services is compelling. It has united hardworking Internet technology promoters, telecommunications business leaders and government policy makers. Their positive motivations include innovative visions, corporate opportunities, and social goods, respectively.Even if these professions succeed in their endeavors, computer researchers will still have much work to do. They will have to deal with the difficult question: How can information and communication services be made usable for every citizen? Designing for experienced, frequent users is difficult enough, but designing for a broad audience of unskilled users is a far greater challenge. Computing technology is still too hard to use for many people. We can define universal usability as having more than 90 percent of all households as successful users of information and communication services at least once a week. A 1998 survey of US households shows that 42% have computers and 26% use Internet-based e-mail or other services. The percentage declines in poorer and less educated areas. While cost is an issue for many, hardware limitations,the perceived difficulty and lack of utility discourages others. This paper presents a research agenda based on three challenges in attaining universal usability for web-based and other services: --Technology variety: Supporting a broad range of hardware, software and network access,--User diversity: Accommodating users with different skills, knowledge, age, gender, handicaps, literacy, culture, income, etc., and --Gaps in user knowledge: Bridging the gap between what users know and what they need to kno