Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2003-5 (VOL.54, NO.3)

Special Issue : Universal Design

• Fujitsu's Activities for Achieving Universal Design

Fujitsu is practicing human-centered design to provide high-accessibility products and services. In this design method, the characteristics of the users and the intended use and use-environment of products and services are analyzed from ergonomic, cognitive-science, and social-science viewpoints. Then, the products and services are designed based on the analysis results. One of the main goals of our human-centered design strategy is to achieve a universal design philosophy that can be used easily by as many people as possible. Concern for universal design in Japanese society is also growing in general. This is happening in part because of the e-Japan policy of the Japanese government. This policy promotes construction of a highly advanced information/communication network that will enable people to use the Internet and other information/communication technologies regardless of their age and physical condition. This paper defines some key concepts of universal design and looks at its background in society, its standardization, and its effect on business. This paper also describes Fujitsu's universal-design policies and some of Fujitsu's activities in this field.

• Accessibility Trends in Japan and Overseas

Several e-Japan plans focus on a Digital Divide strategy and society still underestimates the abilities of disabled and elderly people. Surveys show that elderly people and people with disabilities are not so concerned about narrowing the gap between themselves and less physically-challenged members of society. However, they do feel that IT can bring them closer to society than they have ever been. In the U.S., Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires the Federal Government to ensure that Federal facilities can be accessed with the same ease with which they are accessed by non-disabled people. The U.S. Federal Government considers that IT can help disabled and elderly persons to be more closely connected with the rest of society. This paper looks at how the use of advanced technologies in Japan and the U.S. is empowering disabled and elderly people so they can participate more in society. It also explains that joint efforts between disabled and elderly people and engineers are required to bring about this empowerment.

• International Conference for Universal Design in Japan 2002

The International Conference for Universal Design in Japan 2002 took place in Yokohama, Japan, from November 30 to December 4, 2002, the first international conference to be held in Japan on the topic of universal design. Recognizing its importance, Fujitsu participated in the conference organizing and executive committees and was thus involved in the planning and management during the initial and preparatory stages. Fujitsu is committed to designing products from the customer's viewpoint and improving product usability. As a special sponsor, Fujitsu also delivered presentations on its research, held a luncheon seminar and exhibited products. This paper summarizes the conference and its results, describes how Fujitsu participated and the lively atmosphere of the conference and the exhibition site, and discusses the significance of the conference for companies in the IT industry and its effect on future business.

• Web Usability Evaluation Method: Scenario-Based Walkthrough

Several consumer test reports have shown that more than 40% of buying attempts at e-commerce sites fail because customers cannot find a desired product or cannot complete the checkout process. As a result, on-line businesses are estimated to have lost a potential income of about 14 billion dollars during the 2000 holiday season. To run an effective business on the Internet, it is very important to design usable and appealing websites. In this paper, we propose a Web usability evaluation method that we have developed called Scenario-Based Walkthrough. In this method, evaluators define a set of scenarios, which are descriptions of use episodes, based on our own scenario typology and then evaluate the actions of the scenarios based on a cognitive model without the need for test users. This method can help customers clarify the business objectives of websites. It can also detect important problems that prevent the achievement of business objectives more effectively than conventional usability methods.

• Voice Portal Solutions

The voice user interface is an important tool for realizing natural, easy-to-use human-computer interfaces that can bridge the digital-divide. This paper gives an overview of voice interface applications and information access systems that operate over a telephone network. It also introduces some voice portal solutions that use speech recognition, text-to-speech technology, and dialogue control and outlines the speech processing technologies used in voice portal solutions. The developers of a voice portal system must understand the characteristics of speech and ensure that the speech recognition part can cope with irrelevant words, background noise, and the distortions caused by telephone lines. Text-to-speech technology produces natural speech and other speech styles by using a corpus-based method and automatically constructing a waveform database. The information services of municipal offices, traffic information services, stock price services, and so on are widely expected to incorporate voice portal systems in the near future.

• Usability Consulting Services

Fujitsu provides usability consulting services to make customers' systems and services easier to use. Staff experienced in usability studies and human engineering evaluate the customers' systems and services, analyze the users' considerations and patterns of behavior, and propose improvements. Usability consulting is applicable not only to software systems such as websites and interactive voice and audio response systems in user service centers, but also to hardware systems such as automated teller machines. In these services, Fujitsu conducts unique research and analysis through questionnaires, group interviews, user tests, heuristic evaluations, and Scenario-Based Walkthrough. This paper outlines the usability consulting services and a case example.

• Web-Accessibility Check Tool: WebInspector

The accessibility of websites will become more and more important as the IT society evolves. The designers, developers, and managers of websites must ensure they are sufficiently accessible, especially important sites such as e-banking and e-Government sites. To teach Fujitsu staff the concepts and skills of good Web accessibility, Fujitsu has produced the "Fujitsu Web Accessibility Guidelines." We are now using these guidelines to help us correctly design Web pages. However, applying these guidelines to Web pages that have already been constructed and are open to the public often involves a great deal of work. To make this work easier to accomplish, we have developed a new tool, called WebInspector, that can check the accessibility of a website automatically and efficiently. This paper describes the main functions and features of WebInspector.

• Web Accessibility in the Fujitsu Group

Web accessibility is steadily improving worldwide, and increasing efforts are being made in Japan to provide web accessibility centered on the websites of local government agencies, government offices, other public facilities, and companies. Some standards and guidelines for web accessibility are already available. However, few of them specify concrete methods for ensuring accessibility when constructing websites. Moreover, it is quite difficult for web designers to provide the same minimum level of accessibility to all users because there are differences in the users' environments, for example, not all users use the same operating system. This paper introduces some methods of implementing web accessibility that we have developed and experienced while operating and managing at http://jp.fujitsu.com/ and creating a global web guideline for the entire Fujitsu Group.

• Improving Information Accessibility on the FMV series

The Internet is becoming an indispensable part of the daily life of the elderly and people with disabilities. The Internet makes it possible, for example, for a house-bound elderly person or a person with mobility impairments to interact with the world in many new ways. Also, people with visual impairments can search websites for information using a talking browser and enhanced display functions. However, people with disabilities also often face accessibility problems and misunderstand the information they are presented. To help alleviate these problems, Fujitsu has been making extensive improvements to its FMV series of personal computers so that the elderly and people with disabilities can use them to access information more easily. This paper describes an approach to better accessibility using two examples: Fujitsu's FMWORLD.NET personal computer information site and a support portal tool called Fujitsu Service Assistant.

• Promoting Universal Design for ATMs

As much as possible, public services should be easily accessible to everybody, regardless of their physical condition and familiarity with modern technology. However, certain groups of people do encounter difficulties in accessing services and these difficulties make up what is known as the "Digital Divide." Recent developments in IT technologies are making it easier for people who have some form of disability to work and study. Also, various countries have established guidelines for products and services and regulations that promote the use of universal designs. To narrow the Digital Divide, Fujitsu has developed many ATM products for banks, governments, and hospitals that have been improved with new functions and adopt a universal design. This paper describes the philosophy, methods, and results of our universal-design activities for ATMs.

• Design of Touch-Panel User Interfaces for Public Systems

User interfaces with touch panels are now widely installed in public systems. Considering the important social role of public services, it is especially important that user interfaces have a universal design. User interfaces with touch panels have strong merits; for example, complicated services can be executed with a simple operation. However, such interfaces also have demerits, for example, it is difficult to build touch panels that provide the user with tactile sensations that indicate the intended user-action has been performed. To overcome these demerits and thereby make public services easier to use, Fujitsu is organizing a special user-interface development team. This paper describes the following design techniques used in "amabile", which is an example of screen design for public systems:
- Design of easy-to-read characters,
- design of buttons that are easy to select and press,
- removal of factors that make people reluctant to use machines,
- measures to supply information that clearly guides users through complicated operations.

• E-mail Software for Children with Disabilities: Raku Raku Mail

In Japan, IT education is being encouraged in schools, and most schools, including special schools, now have computers and Internet connections. To access the Internet, children with disabilities need special hardware and software, for example, special input devices. To improve the Internet use environment for children with disabilities and encourage them to communicate by e-mail, we have developed an e-mail software called "Raku Raku Mail". We started developing this new software in July 2001 and released it in November 2002. During this development period, several special schools evaluated the software and we made many improvements based on their evaluation results. Raku Raku Mail has special features for children with disabilities; for example, it changes kanji in messages into their hiragana equivalents, reads messages out loud using a speech synthesizer, and accepts inputs through external switches. This paper introduces the functions of Raku Raku Mail and presents the results of the evaluations by the special schools.

• PC Volunteer Club for People with Disabilities: Pasobora Club

The Pasobora club is a PC volunteer club run by Fujitsu Info Software Technologies Limited as part of their philanthropic activities. The club freely provides space and equipment (e.g., PCs that are not being used by the company) for a personal computer workshop and also arranges for volunteers to teach and assist in the workshop. This paper looks at the special requirements of people with visual disabilities or people with hearing disabilities when they use information technology (IT) equipment, for example, requirements regarding the environment, software, hardware, and assistants and shows how the Pasobora club is trying to meet these needs. It also describes the organizational backup structure that is required to extend this type of activity throughout the entire Fujitsu group.

• Fujitsu's Solution for System Operation Management: SupportDesk Management

As information technology including the Internet has progressed, information systems have become increasingly diverse. These sophisticated systems are crucial to the customer's business and must offer stable 24/7 operation. To enable system managers to deal effectively with day-to-day operational issues, Fujitsu provides SupportDesk Management, a solution based on decades of technical experience in system operation support. In this service, the customer's system is connected to Fujitsu who then supports operation and management of the system. This paper outlines the SupportDesk Management service and case examples of its application.