Chapter 14: Conclusion

This chapter summarises and evaluates the research detailed throughout this book and offers some overall conclusions. It begins with a brief assessment of the extent to which the writer's research could be deemed to have been ‘inclusive’, facilitating informed consent, participant involvement and understanding. Next it summarises research findings, highlighting the discrepancy between preferences and performances, regarding different interface designs and findings around information-seeking behaviour – particularly, of course, serial and random access behaviour.

It is concluded with a short discussion of the counter-intuitive nature of some of the results and comparing them with standard guidelines, apparently made on assumptions and lacking an evidence-base, from which suggestions are made for future research. It will end with the affirmation made at the beginning of the book, that people with learning disabilities should be able to enjoy the same benefits of the information age as anyone else, and urges the use of empirical evidence in the design and presentation of electronic information resources to facilitate this.