Universal Design for Web Applications

Chapter 2. Selling It

The lights come up. You and your friends get up from your seats, shifting the popcorn tubs and candy boxes underfoot, and the discussion begins.

“That was amazing! I loved how the director was faithful to the novel it was based on.”

“Yes. And I thought the ending tied all of the subplots together nicely.”

You stand there, silently. You didn’t get it. At all.

In fact, you look around at the others filing out of the theater, and the ruffled brows and other quizzical expressions you see indicate that maybe your friends are the only ones clued in to this particular masterpiece. You’re inclined to shout out, “Did anyone else understand what just happened here?” But saying so would expose you as no more than a cola-slushy-slurping Neanderthal, forever doomed to scour IMDB for explications of any film more challenging than Dumb and Dumber. Instead, you say nothing. On the way home, you imagine that the director had stopped the film and explained it to your cohorts while you had stepped out for your ritual mid-film butter reload. You are searching for a way to prove to yourself that you are not as stupid as you were just made to feel.

No one likes feeling dumb, or being left out. But on some level, at some time, each of us has a barrier to overcome. This barrier can have its basis in your ambient environment, or in your cultural or educational background, or in how your brain is wired. It may just be too little sleep—and too little coffee. However it ...