Human factors design of a video monitor emulator and display (VMED) for visually impaired computer users

This paper describes research conducted by the Atlanta VA Medical Center in the area of visual impairment and computer usage--in particular, work on the design of a device that reformats computer video output for use by persons with limited usable vision. The objective of the current project is to design, build, and test a video/video control interface that can be connected to and will reformat the video data of any general-purpose computer/word processor. The objectives of this work are to complete a human factors analysis of types of tasks performed on computers/word processors, and to design and build a universal interface that implements the results of the aforementioned study.