Edinburgh Napier University

  Universal Access belongs not only in the research laboratory, but also in an industrial environment. Many countries have set out specific legal requirements for companies to meet in terms of proportions of staff with disabilities and meeting those requirements is a new experience for many employers. More enlightened companies wish to take their commitment beyond meeting the letter of the law and to provide a genuinely inclusive work-place. However, implementing such an approach is complex. The principal aim of this paper is to describe the steps being taken by The Post Office (TPO), with the assistance of the University of Cambridge, to offer a more inclusive work-place to support a wider range of employee physical capabilities. Computer access, including interface and input system design issues, features very prominently in research at Cambridge. An approach taken to assess the potential for universal access within the TPO environment is described and the relative merits of adaptive and proactive design methods discussed. Although the case study presented is very specific and still in its preliminary stages, the generic usability issues are applicable to a wider range of computer applications.