Such an agenda is explained in some detail in a forthcoming issue of Communications of the ACM . Accommodating a broader spectrum of usage situations forces researchers to consider a wider range of designs and often leads to innovations that benefit all users. Automobile designers have long understood the benefits of accommodating a wide range of users. They feature adjustable seats, steering wheels, mirrors, and lighting levels as standard equipment and offer optional equipment for those who need additional flexibility. Similarly, adding curbcuts after the curbs have been built is expensive, but building them in advance reduces costs because less material is needed.
Technological innovators delight in novelty and improved features.
They see competitive advantage to advanced designs, but these changes disrupt efforts to broaden audiences and markets. Since limiting progress is usually an unsatisfactory solution, an appealing strategy is to make information content, online services, entertainment, and user interfaces more malleable or adaptable by users. Users approach new software tools with diverse skills and multiple intelligences. Some users need only a few minutes orientation to understand the novelties and begin to use new tools successfully. Others need more time to acquire knowledge about the objects and actions in the application domain and the user interface.