Ore. Profs Develop Email For Those With Cognitive Disabilities

EUGENE Ore.
Two professors at the University
of Oregon have launched a
simplified e-mail program aimed at people with cognitive disabilities.

The program, dubbed CogLink by its creators, has no Inbox or
Outbox, no list of messages sent and received, and no icons to show what’s been
replied to or forward.

Instead, there’s just a simple list of e-mail buddies, to
show whether you’ve e-mailed someone on your list and if they’ve written back
yet.

The software is the brainchild of UO computer science
professor Stephen Fickas and McKay Moore Sohlberg.

The program works by setting up a buddy system. Users give
the tech support staff a list of the people they want to have contact with, and
only e-mails from those people get through, protecting them from spam and
viruses.

CogLink also keeps the confusion of e-mail to a minimum by
reducing the choices users have to make. For example, no “Send”
button appears on the screen until an e-mail has actually been composed.