Universal Usability

Universal usability refers to the design of information and communications products and services that are usable for every citizen. The concept has been advocated by Professor Ben Shneiderman, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also provided a more practical definition of universal usability – “having more than 90% of all households as successful users of information and communications services at least once a week.” The concept of universal usability (“usable by all”) is closely related to the concepts of universal accessibility (“accessible by all”) and universal design (“design for all”). These three concepts altogether cover, from the user’s end to the developer’s end, the three important research areas of information and communications technology (ICT): use, access, and design.