Accessibility User Research Collective: Engaging Consumers in Ongoing Technology Evaluation.

The rapid pace of change in consumer technology requires structures and mechanisms to ensure ongoing engagement of consumers with disabilities so that new and updated products and services are accessible and useful. This article reviews the rationale, creation, operation, and impact of the Accessibility User Research Collective (AURC), a partnership between Microsoft and Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital for traumatic injury and neurodegenerative diseases, to create and maintain a national network of people with all types of disabilities to provide ongoing customer input and testing of Microsoft products and services. The AURC is modeled after the Consumer Advisory Network (CAN) concept developed by Shepherd Center staff under the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies (Wireless RERC) and continued in recent years by the LiveWell RERC. The concept is to build a national network of consumers with disabilities who can be recruited to participate in targeted usability and needs-discovery studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]