Following is a list of resources that contain guidelines for an accessible user interface. Each has been included because some or all of the information it contains is relevant to the user interface for digital talking books. Please send any comments, suggestions for additional items, etc to jdix@loc.gov

• Guidelines for the design of consumer products to increase their accessibility to persons with disabilities or who are aging

  Summary: Describes problems met by people with various disabilities in using standard consumer products and proposes designs that increase usability. Areas germane to the DTB UI: "Maximize the number of people who will not miss important display info if they can't see" (section 0-5) and "maximize the number of people who can determine the status/setting of the controls if they can't see them" (section I-4).

• Research and Development in Advanced Communications in Europe (RACE)

  Summary: Experiments exploring blind person's access to computer and telecommunications systems. Slick and entertaining overview of access problems and solutions for many categories of disabilities. Includes specific research results involving blind participants. Areas germane to the DTB UI: "General Design Principles" and "Usability Problems & Solutions"

• Style Sheets For Producing Spoken Renderings by T.V. Raman

  Summary: Proposes a specification for presenting a document in an "auditory display" to persons who are "functional blind". Uses cues that may be available to speech synthesizer hardware such as pitch, rate, pause, and volume variations. This could serve as a way to specify control feedback for the DTB UI. Areas germane to the DTB UI: Page 1 overview.

• "Optimal number of choices per menu for naive users of a computer-answered telephone system", Computers & industrial engineering, Volume 32, Number 2

  Summary: Explores hierarchical auditory menu trees. User performance and preferences are empirically determined. Author recommends 4 choices per menu. Areas germane to the DTB UI: Abstract and conclusion.

• "Resource Guide for Accessible Design of Consumer Electronics ... a joint Venture of the Electronic Industries Association and the Electronic Industries Foundation"

  Summary: Provides guidelines to designers of consumer electronics to facilitate the design of products that are accessible to a wider range of individuals, including individuals with disabilities. Areas germane to the DTB UI: Section 7 Design Evaluation Checklist, subsection 3.0 Auditory Displays; Section 10 Design Guidelines, subsection 3.0 Auditory Displays.

• Auditory User Interfaces -- Toward The Speaking Computer Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston The book can be ordered over the Internet from the publishers WWW site at http://www.wkap.nl/kapis/CGI-BIN/WORLD/book.htm?0-7923-9984-6

  Summary: The author believes "speech interfaces for the mainstream computer user will be the next big revolution once the Internet excitement has blown over". He presents his ideas on audio user interfaces. Areas germane to the DTB UI: Section 4, Concrete Implementation Of An Audio Desktop.

• WAI User Agent Guidelines

  Summary: This page contains draft guidelines for the development of accessible user agents and reviews of current user agents evaluated against the draft guidelines. This work is being coordinated by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the W3C.