Jim Mueller is the Project Director of User Needs Assessment for the Wireless RERC (Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center) in Atlanta, Georgia, a US Department of Education-funded research center endeavoring to work with mobile carriers and handset manufacturers to create products that are usable by people with disabilities: sensory, cognitive, and physical. Sensory disabilities include hearing and sight—and not only complete blindness, but differing levels of sight, which is true for each of the disability classes: some people can’t walk, and others have difficulty walking but can walk with assistance.

Jim is speaking at the Wireless Accessibility Workshop at CTIA on Wednesday 5 April 2006, and he was kind enough to speak to me the night before the workshop about how his group can most effectively support improvements to the wireless user experience for disabled people. I suggested that Jim contact carriers, who are the true customers of the handset manufacturers—mobile phone end users buy from the carriers, after all.

Reader challenge: if you know someone or are yourself involved at a manufacturer or carrier, and have interest in helping people with disabilities, please contact Jim directly. He is seeking contacts who are responsible for handset buying, specification, and marketing. His group is working to put numbers to the buying power of people with disabilities, whom we all agree are under-served.