ABSTRACT
The emergence of multi-media computer technologies provides opportunities for creative technical approaches to the design of new equipment for those who are visually impaired. The MATHS project was designed as a response to such opportunities, it aims to develop an interactive workstation to enable visually impaired users to read, write and manipulate algebraic expressions. However it has become increasingly apparent that not only technical but also user issues need to be addressed during the design process. Using analysis of conversation rather than classical task analysis to model the dialogue it is hoped that a more fundamental understanding of users needs could be achieved. Through an understanding of the structural regularities in dialogue in a particular domain tools designed for use in that domain should more closely match user needs and expectations. This paper presents a case study of task analysis followed by dialogue modelling, the aim of which was to identify recurrent structures in conversations and to use these models when designing the interface for the MATHS workstation.
