Why implement it?
The number of skills necessary to participate fully in modern-day society are continually increasing and so is the expected level of technological know-how.
More and more companies are providing their services through the Internet. To make full use of these services requires both the ability to operate a computer and the necessary software, and the ability to pay for the service itself, a personal computer and dial-up facilities.
Alternatively it is necessary to be able to travel to an Internet café or public library and pay the usage charge once there. Failure to meet any of these requirements results in effective exclusion from all web-based services.
The concept of the 'digital divide' (Pieper, Morasch and Piéla, 2002) has been proposed to summarise the gap between the technological 'haves' and 'have-nots', particularly regarding computer access. However, the overall problem of disenfranchisement extends beyond computers and is a broader social issue.
While curing society's ills is beyond the immediate aim of this resource, we are aiming to provide an introduction to the foundations for developing products and services that minimise levels of exclusion (and subsequent disenfranchisement).