Compass Assessment Software
About This Project
Computer technology has much to offer individuals who have disabilities. To fulfill this potential, it is critical that the computer system be closely matched to the user's needs and abilities. An important part of this matching process is a thorough assessment of the component skills that may be necessary for an individual to successfully use a candidate system.
Our goal in developing Compass software is to improve interventions in the area of computer use for people with disabilities. Compass measures skills needed for computer interaction, such as motor actions (e.g., keyboard, mouse) and cognitive/perceptual activities (e.g., simple decision making, target search). It helps evaluators to:
- Diagnose difficulties with an existing interface;
- Evaluate and compare client performance with candidate access systems;
- Plan training interventions;
- Track changes in a client’s abilities over time; and
- Measure the effectiveness of an intervention.
Compass supports all of these tasks in an easy-to-use software package. Eight different skill tests are currently provided, each with a wide variety of configuration options to tailor test presentation to a client’s needs. You select the appropriate tests to run with each client, depending on the particular questions to be addressed. Compass collects and helps you interpret speed and accuracy data resulting from each skill test. This allows you to observe qualitative, subjective aspects of your client’s performance while the computer does what it does well: record quantitative data.
Creation of Compass was inspired by the needs of clinical and educational professionals. We thank the many individuals who participated in the development process, as informal advisors, usability testers, or survey responders. Your input has been invaluable, and we hope the commercial version of Compass successfully meets your needs.
Download Compass today and give it a try. Please send comments to compass@kpronline.com.
Compass research and development was supported the National Institutes of Health.