Requirement Questions

How will personalized accessibility be calculated? What questions should be asked on the user profile and how should their answers affect the personalized accessibility calculations?

1. A simple answer to this would be that we ask exactly the same questions that are asked on the location checklist and we only use 'yes' answers to affect the personalized accessibility results. For example, if a user needs a ramp and nothing else from the checklist the 'Entrance' category is the only category to show in the location's profile and it is either 100%(has a ramp) or 0% accessible(no ramp). The good lighting question would have no affect on the result.

2. Another option would be to focus more on disabilities and the devices the user depends on and find multiple checklist items with each profile question. For example, "Do you use a wheelchair?" That question would imply a need for "yes" or "N/A" to any ramp or wheelchair-related checklist questions. The following questions could also help us get the information we need about the user with fewer questions:

• "Does large print help?" (2 associated checklist questions)
• "Does braille help?" (2 associated checklist questions)
• "Are you legally blind?" (4+ associated checklist questions and could eliminate the need for the braille question above)
• "Are you hard of hearing or deaf?" (2+ associated checklist questions like "Closed captioning", "Assisted Listening" )

The main advantage with this option would be getting more information with fewer questions. It prevents users from making likely mistakes such as selecting braille under one question category(public areas) but missing another question for braille(amenities). The main drawback to going with this exclusively is that users could lose that finer level of control.

1. Yet another option is that we could mix the options together by treating questions like 'Are you legally blind?' as a profile question that branches into all its associated location checklist questions too. This would mean that all blind-related checklist questions could be checked quickly but the user could control at a finer level too by indicating which individual checklist questions he wants included with his personalized accessibility ratings.

In addition to the profile questions that affect the personalized accessibility ratings, we should have a question or 2 to optimize the web application for the user's disabilities. A screen reader for websites because this question could help us switch to more screen reader-friendly elements in our web application. For example, a Google map won't be screen reader friendly but a list of location names and addresses might be.