Abstract:

This article describes a software prototype to support the planning process for adapting home and work environments for people with physical disabilities, which was designed and later evaluated. The prototype exploits low-cost three-dimensional (3-D) graphics products in the home computer market. The essential features of the prototype are: interactive rendering with optional hardware acceleration, interactive walkthroughs, direct manipulation tools for moving objects and measuring distances, and import of 3-D-objects from a library. Emphasis in the usability study was placed on the prototype's efficiency and learnability. The usability evaluation confirmed the authors findings from previous case studies, regarding the relevance and positive attitude towards this kind of planning tool. Although the prototype was found to be satisfactorily efficient for the basic tasks, the paper presents several suggestions for improvement of future prototype versions.