An Adjustable User Interface Providing Transparent Access to Application Programs for the Physically Disabled1

User interfaces of application programs are usually not designed for the physically disabled [VAN93]. Here we introduce a program for Apple Macintosh computers and PCs using MSWindows that do assist handicapped users in their interaction with standard application programs. The basic principle is to interact with an interface agent and not with the target application itself, in particular text is entered to the application program via the interface that uses standard operating system mechanisms like the Inter Application Communication (IAC) in the case of the Macintosh. Hence a disabled user may access many different application programs using the same interface. An important feature is the integration of a text prediction component based on the context-sensitive algorithm used in the Reactive Keyboard due to John Darragh and Ian Witten [DWJ90, DAW92]. Currently stable protoype versions for Macintosh and MS-Windows are available.