Students learn about: Inclusivity • the need for software to not exclude individuals or groups based on characteristics such as: – cultural background – economic background – gender – disability | Students learn to:
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| Inclusive | Containing, embracing or comprising everything concerned. Comprehensively includes and takes account of stated concerns. |
Inclusive software should take into account the different users who will likely use the product; as software developers, we have a responsibility to ensure that this is the case. Furthermore, software products that do not take into account the different characteristics of users are less likely to secure a significant market share, which would result in lower sales and reduced profits.
Let us now examine a number of individual and group characteristics that should be considered when designing software solutions. In most cases, these characteristics will have direct consequences for the design of the user interface.
Student Activity
Summarise each of the key points related to Inclusivity from the above Text book.
The following are suggested headings....
Key Headings are:
- Cultural background
- The culture of a people can be described as the set of ways of living built up over a period of time and passed from generation to generation.
- It is important that the beliefs and language of different cultures be considered when designing software.
- Similarly, the social structure of societies is influenced by their underlying culture.
- Economic background
- Economic characteristics relate to the generation, distribution and use of income and wealth.
- This can be viewed on a global, national, local or industry specific scale.
- Software development is a relatively new industry that is growing in both breadth and overall volume; a very healthy economic situation.
- As software developers, we have a responsibility to ensure consideration is given to the economic situation of purchasers of software products.
- Consider what factors affect price of software:
- Quality
- Nature of Market
- Management of S/W design and development process
- Influences on pricing
- Gender
- What are the major differences and how should these differences be included when designing and developing software?
- Firstly, both men and women should be included in the software design and development process.
- Disability
- Software design should include functionality that allows software to be used and accessed by a wide range of users.
- The computer and its associated software has revolutionised the lives of many disabled people.
- Examine some broad categories of disability and discuss some accessibility techniques that should be considered by software designers.
- Visual disabilities
- Simply using larger fonts and providing the facility for controls and graphics to be scaled may overcome reduced visual ability.
- Colour blindness and other related conditions make it difficult to distinguish different colours and colour combinations.
- To accommodate users with severe to total impairment requires software to correctly interface with speech generation and Braille utilities.
- Hearing disabilities
- Software should not rely on sound as the sole method of communicating information.
- It should be used to emphasise and/or reinforce other visual clues.
- Utilities are available that will give some visual clue if a sound has been produced.
- Physical disabilities
- Some users have difficulty performing certain physical tasks.
- Accessibility features found in many operating systems and applications to assist the physically disabled