- For each Principle of Universal Design, write 2-3 sentences — or point form notes — explaining which features your program adhere to that principle. If you do not have any such features, you can either: (a) Describe features that you could implement in the future that would adhere to the principle or (b) Explain why the principle does not apply to a program like yours.
- Principle 1 - Equitable Use: Our program adheres to the principle of equitable use by decreasing the segregation of users by providing visual aids such as directed graph to assist those with visual learning styles. The summarization feature also enhances usability of our program for those with cognitive disabilities or attention deficit disorders as it allows them to gain the insights to key points of a research paper without having to read through long, content dense texts. Additionally, our search bar stores the history of the past few inquiries the user has made, which can be beneficial to those with memory impairments. Additionally, our sign up/log in system and change password feature make provisions for privacy and security equally available for all users.
- Principle 2 - Flexibility in Use: Our program does not currently adhere to this principle. However, in the future, features we could implement to adhere to this principle are auditory aids. For instance, we could implement a speech-to-text feature that allows users to enter search queries without using their hands or a text-to-speech feature that reads the summarization of articles aloud for the user to hear. These additional enhancements would ensure that our program can accomodate a wider ranve of individual preferences and abilities.
- Principle 3 - Simple and Intuitive Use: Our program is designed in a manner that will allow users to easily utilize its research features without any unnecessary steps and complexities. On the sign up and login page, there are buttons with labels allowing users to sign up/log in to their account and to change their password if desired. There is also a button labled with 'Search' that takes users to a query page where they can enter research topics into the search bar. The query page also has buttons allowing users to return to the login page to logout or change their password. Once users enter the results page, there is a return button allowing users to return to the query page to make another query. The labels on every view page and button allows for effective prompting and feedback during and after task completion. The transition from the login view to query view to results view follows a pattern consistent with a user's intuition of how one would login to a research database and search for research articles.
- Principle 4 - Perceptible Information: Our program adheres to this principle by communicating necessary information through various methods. The graph visualization effectively illustrates relationships between sources, while article summaries provide a text-based representation of the content. The graph is also interactive, allowing users to click on nodes representing the articles to get the URL link to the research papers. This redundancy ensures users can access essential information in different formats, supporting those with diverse sensory needs.
- Principle 5 - Tolerance for Error: Our program incorporates features that minimizes the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. For instance, if a user tries to create an account with a taken username, a pop-up will appear to inform them the username is taken. If a user attempts to login with a nonexistent username or incorrect password, a warning will appear. If a user accidently presses the 'Search' button and enters the results page, there is a 'Return' button allowing them to return to the query page.
- Principle 6 - Low Physical Effort: Our program can be used efficiently and comfortably, as our design prevents users from having to click through pages of results after making a search query. Instead, the results are dispalyed on one page. Additionally, by clicking on an article's node on the graph, a summary for the paper is generated without needing users to enter the article's url into another text field.
- Principle 7 - Size and Space for Approach and Use: This principle does not apply to a program like ours as this principle applies primarily towards devices that need to consider physical reach, posture, and mobility. Since our program operates in a digital space, the program's functionality is not dependent on the user's physical positioning and body size.
- Write a paragraph (3-6 sentences) about who you would market your program towards, if you were to sell or license your program to customers. This could be a specific category of users, such as "students", or more vague, such as "people who like games". Try to give a bit more detail along with the category.
- If we were to market this program, we would target students and researchers who are seeking an efficient way to navigate large volumes of scholarly articles and quickly determine each article's relevance to a specific research topic. Our program allows users to input research topics into the system and generate a directed graphs displaying articles that are related to the given prompt. The graph also illustrates which articles reference the other, allowing users to efficiently, and visually assess the credibility of each article, as a frequently referenced source is likely a more relevant and trustworthy source to base research off of. Additionally, the program can also provide a summary for each of the articles, which is an invaluable feature for students trying to quickly gather data and key insights for their own research. We could also market our program towards those who enjoy learning about new topics. Our summarization feature allows users to quickly gain an understanding of a desired topic without having to read through pages of scholarly papers.
- Write a paragraph about whether or not your program is less likely to be used by certain demographics. Your discussion here should be informed by the content of our embedded ethics modules this term.
- Our program is designed to support all users who have an interest in academic research and aims to provide equitable access to all demographics. By incorporating features such as summarizing articles and visualizing displaying the relationships between sources, the program aims to remove barriers that users may encounter while trying to conduct academic research. These elements of our program align with the principles of the social model of disability, which emphasizes how the societal barriers and the environmental design of the human world create limitations for the individual rather than the impairment itself. The summarization and visualization feature may be useful to those with cognitive disabilities or attention deficit disorders as they make the process of researching a topic and validating of the credibility of a source more efficient for the user. The demographic our program may less likely be used by are those with visual impairments since the results from any search queries that users make are visually displayed in the form of a graph on the screen. Summaries of the articles are also printed only in text, and accessing additional information about an article, such as its doi or web link, requires users to click on the nodes of the graph on the screen. Those without access to the internet would also be restricted from using our program. If we were to continue the development of our program, we would prioritize ehancing the program's accessibility by implementing alternative navigation options that incorporate audio features, such as text-to-speech functionalities. These enhancements would help ensure that users of all demographics can equally engage with and beneift from the program’s features, and would enable our program to align closer with the first principle of design, equitable use.