contributed articles
RECALL THE LAST time you took a trip out of town.
Perhaps you were traveling to a conference far from
home. Remember the many forms of transportation
you endured: cars, buses, airplanes, and trains.

Not only were you responsible for moving yourself over a great distance, you had to move your things as well, including books and baggage. Remember the cramped spaces, sharp elbows, body aches, and exhaustion. Feel again your desire to simply be at your destination with your possessions intact . . .

Such journeys remind us of our physical
embodiment in the physical world, that much of our
lived experience is fundamentally physical, and that
we must contend with the world on
physical terms. As computing profes-
sionals, we might be tempted to forget
this, as our keystrokes summon data
instantly from across the globe. But as
humans, we still interact with that data
through physical devices and displays
using our physical senses and bodies.
We and the world interact physically.

Civilization’s story of technological progress is in no small part the story of an increasingly built physical environment, from the pyramids to roads to skyscrapers to sanitation systems. Much of our energy, collectively and individually, goes into moving and shaping material for such purposes, altering the physical landscape and our movement through it. Some of our most thrilling experiences come by way of changing our bodies’ relation to that landscape: bungee jumping, skydiving, scuba diving, and riding a rollercoaster all provide radically new experiences for our bodies in the world.

As designers and builders of interactive systems for human use, we also play a central role in defining people’s relationship to and experience of the physical world. 2, 13, 30 When we design things, we take mere ideas, things without form, and embody them in the world, whether simple sketches or cardboard mockups. They could be pixels on a screen or functioning digital devices. Regardless of the medium, to design and build things is to embody ideas that are then encountered and

Ability-

Based
Design
DOI: 10.1145/3148051

By focusing on users’ abilities rather than disabilities, designers can create interactive systems better matched to those abilities.

BY JACOB O. WOBBROCK, KRZYSZTOF Z. GAJOS,
SHAUN K. KANE, AND GREGG C. VANDERHEIDEN

key insights

˽ Ability-based design is a new design approach for interactive systems that focuses on people’s abilities in context, on what people can do, rather than on what they cannot do.

˽ Ability-based design scrutinizes the “ability assumptions” behind the design of interactive systems, shifting the responsibility of enabling access from users to the system.

˽ People’s abilities may be affected not just by disabilities but by disabling situations; designing for abilities in context leads to more usable, accessible systems for all people.