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The autonomy, independence, productivity and, in general, quality of life of people with visual impairments often rely significantly on their ability to use new assistive technologies. In particular, their ability to navigate by foot, use means of transport and visit indoor spaces may be greatly enhanced by the use of assistive navigation systems. In this paper, a detailed analysis of user needs and requirements is presented concerning the design and development of assisting navigation systems for blind and visually impaired people (BVIs). To this end, the elicited user needs and requirements from interviews with the BVIs are processed and classified into seven main categories. Interestingly, one of the categories represents the requirements of the BVIs to be trained on the use of the mobile apps that would be included in an assistive navigation system. The need of the BVIs to be confident in their ability to safely use the apps revealed the requirement that training versions of the apps should be available. These versions would be able to simulate real-world conditions during the training process. The requirements elicitation and classification reported in this paper aim to offer insight into the design, development, deployment and distribution of assistive navigation systems for the BVIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The development of assistive technologies that support people in social interactions has attracted increased attention in HCI. This paper presents a systematic review of studies of Socially Assistive Systems targeted at older adults and people with disabilities. The purpose is threefold: (1) Characterizing related assistive systems with a special focus on the system design, primarily including HCI technologies used and user-involvement approach taken; (2) Examining their ways of system evaluation; (3) Reflecting on insights for future design research. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted using the keywords "social interactions" and "assistive technologies" within the following databases: Scopus, Web of Science, ACM, Science Direct, PubMed, and IEEE Xplore. Results Sixty-five papers met the inclusion criteria and were further analyzed. Our results showed that there were 11 types of HCI technologies that supported social interactions for target users. The most common was cognitive and meaning understanding technologies, often applied with wearable devices for compensating users' sensory loss; 33.85% of studies involved end-users and stakeholders in the design phase; Four types of evaluation methods were identified. The majority of studies adopted laboratory experiments to measure user-system interaction and system validation. Proxy users were used in system evaluation, especially in initial experiments; 42.46% of evaluations were conducted in field settings, primarily including the participants' own homes and institutions. Conclusion We contribute an overview of Socially Assistive Systems that support social interactions for older adults and people with disabilities, as well as illustrate emerging technologies and research opportunities for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is a first step to widen accessibility requirements to statistical charts and to take into consideration users with low vision and CVD, often forgotten in accessibility research. The impact of information technologies and the expansion of the Internet are rapidly changing the way in which information and services are accessed by people, as well as the way they share information and communicate with friends, relatives, educators, colleagues, etc. [Extracted from the article]

During the past years, the development of assistive technologies for visually impaired (VI)/blind people has helped address various challenges in their lives by providing services such as obstacle detection, indoor/outdoor navigation, scene description, text reading, facial recognition and so on. This systematic mapping review is mainly focused on the scene understanding aspect (e.g., object recognition and obstacle detection) of assistive solutions. It provides guidance for researchers in this field to understand the advances during the last four and a half years. This is because deep learning techniques together with computer vision have become more powerful and accurate than ever in tasks like object detection. These advancements can bring a radical change in the development of high-quality assistive technologies for VI/blind users. Additionally, an overview of the current challenges and a comparison between different solutions is provided to indicate the pros and cons of existing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces research papers about universal access, assistive technology and robotics.

This paper examines key issues involving the interaction, design and usability of a digital whiteboard interface to support Down syndrome (DS) students in their learning of addition and subtraction algorithms. The research goals include (a) to identify the main interaction difficulties present when executing addition and subtraction operations and (b) to improve the interaction design of the digital whiteboard interface to adapt it to DS characteristics. In order to achieve these goals, several studies (usability and educational) were conducted with experts and children. These methods and techniques included prototyping, questionnaires (pre-post), thinking out loud, video-recording and structured observation. As regards the interaction aspects with the whiteboard, the items evaluated included (a) mouse use, (b) placement of numbers and balls, (c) ball deletion and crossing out, (d) placement of the sign of the operation and (e) use of sensitive areas established in the worksheet. In addition, the paper presents the main strategies, procedures and errors of DS students for carrying out addition and subtraction algorithms that are more predominant in the DS population. Some relevant findings and results are presented, such as the importance of visual aids (graphics, balls, fingers, etc.) in teaching addition and subtraction to individuals with DS, the advantages of using the whiteboard for students who have difficulty writing, as they can focus on the operation at hand and forget their difficulties with handwriting, or mathematical errors arising from interaction issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many new assistive input systems developed to meet the needs of users with functional impairments fail to make it out of the research laboratory and into regular use by the intended end users. This paper examines some of the reasons for this failure and focuses particularly on whether the developers of such systems are using the correct metrics and approaches for evaluating the functional and social attributes of the input systems they are designing. This paper further focuses on the importance of benchmarking new assistive input systems against baseline measures of useful interaction rates that take allowance of factors such as input success/recognition rate, error rate, correction effort and input time. By addressing each of these measures, a more complete understanding of whether an input system is practically and functionally acceptable can be obtained, and design guidance for developers is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marginalization of people with disabilities, such as visually impaired individuals (VIIs), has driven scientists to take advantage of the fast growth of smart technologies and develop smart assistive systems (SASs) to bring VIIs back to social life, education and even to culture. Our research focuses on developing a human–computer interactive system that will guide VIIs in outdoor cultural environments by offering universal access to cultural information, social networking and safe navigation among other services. The VI users interact with computer-based SAS to control the system during its operation, while having access to remote connection with non-VIIs for external guidance and company. The development of such a system needs a user-centered design (UCD) that incorporates the elicitation of the necessary requirements for a satisfying operation for the VI users. In this paper, we present a novel SAS system for VIIs and its design considerations, which follow a UCD approach to determine a set of operational, functional, ergonomic, environmental and optional requirements of the system. Both VIIs and non-VIIs took part in a series of interviews and questionnaires, from which data were analyzed to form the requirements of the system for both the on-site and remote use. The final requirements are tested by trials and their evaluation and results are presented. The experimental investigations gave significant feedback for the development of the system, throughout the design process. The most important contribution of this study is the derivation of requirements applicable not only to the specific system under investigation, but also to other relevant SASs for VIIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile devices can be an important ally that improves the quality of life of visually impaired people by permitting greater independence in the execution of certain tasks and facilitating social inclusion. This work presents a systematic review that maps out the accessibility issues that visually impaired people experience when they interact with mobile devices. We identified 68 accessibility problems that were mapped into seven problem groups. This mapping was used to propose 28 recommendations to improve the accessibility of mobile devices. This analysis identified the persistence of certain accessibility problems such as the difficulty of typing on keyboards but also finds the emergence of new challenge such as the failure to recognize gesture-based interactions that demand more extensive training for users. This work is important because it provides an overview of accessibility problems that people with visual disabilities experience with mobile devices and proposes a number of accessibility recommendations to guide future studies. The main contribution of this paper is the mapping of accessibility problems into categories and the development of recommendations for identified problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blind people are confronting a number of challenges in performing activities of daily life such as reading labels on a product, identification of currency notes, exploring unknown spaces, identifying the appearance of an object of interest, interacting with digital artifacts, operating a smartphone's user interface and selecting non-visual items on a screen. The emergence of smartphone-based assistive technologies promotes independence, ease of use and usability resulting in improved quality of life yet poses several challenging opportunities. We have reviewed research avenues in smartphone-based assistive technologies for blind people, highlighted the need for technological advancements, accessibility-inclusive interface paradigm, and collaboration between medical specialists, computer professionals, usability experts and domain users to realize the potential of ICT-based interventions for blind people. This paper analyzes a comprehensive review of the issues and challenges for visually impaired and blind people with the aim to highlight the benefits and limitations of the existing techniques and technologies. Future research ventures are also highlighted as a contribution to the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the 2nd Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology which will be held at the University of Cambridge in Great Britain from March 22 to 24, 2004. Goals of the workshop; Advantages of the workshop to computer scientists, designers and engineers; Topics for plenary discussions.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the web accessibility of home pages of universities in Spain, Chile and Mexico. The sample used in this study was the 15 top universities listed in the ranking Webometrics. The study has been carried out using automatic tools in order to analyze the level of compliance with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The results reveal that the selected Web sites have barriers of access to information and that these difficulties are even greater in the case of those who make use of assistive technology. Users of the analyzed Web sites can encounter difficulties mainly with the perception of information and with navigating the site, just as previous studies of web accessibility have shown. This paper concludes that the 3 analyzed countries show low levels of web accessibility on the selected Web sites, proving that there still exist many shortcomings with regard to meeting the regulation and respecting the fundamental rights of all people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assistive technology (AT) has been actively researched, developed and implemented throughout higher-income countries, but is relatively absent from lower-income countries. In lower-income countries, there is very little AT for reading, writing, communicating and for participation in the information society. In order for persons with disabilities in lower-income countries to participate fully in society, mainstream information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phones should be used as AT. This paper explores the potential for using mainstream ICTs as AT in lower-income countries, keeping in mind current ICT trends, characteristics of the post-PC era and ICT-based AT in higher-income countries. The paper concludes with a case study where mobile phones and SMS were used by people with disabilities and their caregivers to access information in a resourced-limited community in Bogota, Colombia. Mobile phones, a readily available mainstream ICT in this community, were a useful tool for addressing the information exclusion of people with disabilities and caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the media reports and governments promoting tourism as a fundamental right for everyone, traveling is still not accessible for disabled people. This study has highlighted the need to make tourists with disabilities accessable for inaccessible destinations. Cyborg products in the form of technological implants can make tourists with disabilities accessable for inaccessible destinations. Since tourists with a mobility disability (TMD) will be one of the primary beneficiaries of technological implants, little is known about their acceptance of technological implants during traveling.Therefore, this study assesses the willingness of TMD to use technological implants during traveling through a qualitative research approach. The results from thematic analysis identified two main themes: the use of assistive devices during traveling with four sub-themes (freedom of traveling, physical and attitudinal barriers, cost, and additional assistance and battery issues), and drivers of impaired cyborg tourists with seven sub-themes (independence, improved well-being, convenience/ease of use, social inclusion, positive emotions, motivation, and other issues). The study contributed to the literature by introducing drivers of impaired cyborg tourists along with previously identified concepts. The results also provided implications for the stakeholders of the tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines to what extent the 129 members of the Urban Public Libraries Council meet the Section 508 standards for accessibility under the Rehabilitation Act, the minimum acceptable standard for accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Using an HTML evaluation tool, WAVE, the HTML coding of the libraries' homepages was evaluated according to the Section 508 criteria for accessibility. After one-to-one deep examination to determine the accessibility of the library websites, the results tended to mirror other studies showing that most library websites have some coding deficiencies that limit the accessibility of the websites. Notably, only 7 of the 122 libraries that were surveyed had no Section 508 errors present with their homepages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with speech and motor impairments may experience difficulties in interaction and learning, among other situations that can lead to emotional, social, and cognitive problems. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is a research area that involves using non-oral modes as a complement or substitute for spoken language. The AAC supported by computer vision (CV) systems can benefit from recognizing the user's remaining functional movements as an alternative design approach to interaction. The complete MyPGI, Methodology to yield Personalized Gestural Interaction, is presented. MyPGI guides the design of AAC systems for people with motor and speech difficulties, using CV techniques and machine learning to enable personalized and noninvasive gestural interaction. The MyPGI methodology was used to develop an AAC system, named PGCA (Personal Gesture Communication Assistant), employing a low-cost approach, used in experiments conducted with volunteers, including students with motor and speech difficulties. Experiments, interviews, and usability evaluation were conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the methodology and the system developed. The results suggest the methodology as promising to support the design of AAC systems capable of enabling personalized gestural interaction, also showing benefits of this approach, technical challenges, and means to overcome them. The results also add knowledge about specific challenges and needs of the target audience. The MyPGI methodology, developed after several iterations and evaluations, is capable to support the design of AAC systems that enable personalized gestural interaction. This article presents an overview of the methodological steps performed, results obtained, and future perspectives for the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speech-based navigation and error correction can serve as a useful alternative for individuals with disabilities that hinder the use of a keyboard and mouse, but existing solutions available in commercial software are still error-prone and time-consuming. This paper discusses two studies conducted with the goal of improving speech-based navigation and error correction techniques. The first study was designed to improve understanding of an innovative speech-based navigation technique: anchor-based navigation. The second study was longitudinal, spanning seven trials, and was intended to provide insights regarding the efficacy of both traditional target/direction-based navigation and anchor-based navigation. Building on earlier studies that employed similar methodologies and interaction solutions, this paper also provides an informal evaluation of a new correction dialogue. Although the two solutions resulted in the same level of efficiency, the underlying strategies adopted were different, and the anchor-based solution allowed participants to generate better quality text and was perceived to be easier to use. These results suggest that the anchor-based solution could be a promising alternative, especially for novice users as they learn how to use speech-based dictation solutions. The findings of these studies need to be further validated with the involvement of users with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the findings of Delivering Inclusive Access to Disabled and Elderly Members of the community (DIADEM), a 3-year project, funded by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme, to assist older adults when accessing, completing, and submitting online forms, by developing web-based assistive technologies that adapt the online form according to users' needs. A user-centred approach is adopted to gain insights into the challenges faced by 80 older adults in three European countries as they interact with a representative sample of public service-based online forms. A thematic analysis is then carried out on the data, which revealed five over-arching themes that relate to the challenges faced by users: assistance, trust, layout, the technology paradigm, and language. From these themes, 23 online form design guidelines are derived, which provide valuable guidance for the development of the DIADEM application and for e-Government online form design for an ageing population in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the design of assistive technology that specifically aims to support an improvement in the quality of life of people with dementia. Starting from interviews with users, a grounded theory approach was used to compile a wish list of issues important for maintaining quality of life. A large list of potential technologies that could address these issues was generated, and four were selected for initial development: a music player, a device to reduce social isolation, a conversation prompter, and a device to support sequences of tasks. The music player and social isolation device are described in this paper in detail. A user-led approach to their design was followed, including approaches to finding control interfaces that were intuitive for people with dementia. The paper concludes with a list of recommendations for designers looking to develop equipment of this kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teams engaging in assistive technology research should include expertise in the domain of disability itself, in addition to other areas of expertise that are more typical in human–computer interaction (HCI) research, such as computer science and psychology. However, unexpected problems can arise when HCI researchers do not adequately plan the involvement of domain experts in a research project. Although many research teams have included domain experts when designing assistive technologies, there has been little work published on how to best involve these experts in the research process. This paper is a first step towards filling that void. Based on the authors’ own experiences involving domain experts in research, as well as those documented in the literature, five types of domain experts and three broad roles that domain experts can play are identified, and five guidelines for their involvement are presented. This analysis will be useful to anyone in the assistive technology and universal accessibility communities, especially those who are in the early stages of conducting research in this area. It is intended to lay the foundation of best practices for involving domain experts in assistive technology research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the work of the COGAIN “communication by gaze interaction” European Network of Excellence that is working toward giving people with profound disabilities the opportunity to communicate and control their environment by eye gaze control. It shows the need for developing eye gaze based communication systems, and illustrates the effectiveness of newly developed COGAIN eye gaze control systems with a series of case studies, each showing differing aspects of the benefits offered by gaze control. Finally, the paper puts forward a strong case for users, professionals and researchers to collaborate towards developing gaze based communication systems to enable and empower people with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a large amount of research has been conducted on building interfaces for the visually impaired that allows users to read web pages and generate and access information on computers, little development addresses two problems faced by the blind users. First, sighted users can rapidly browse and select information they find useful, and second, sighted users can make much useful information portable through the recent proliferation of personal digital assistants (PDAs). These possibilities are not currently available for blind users. This paper describes an interface that has been built on a standard PDA and allows its user to browse the information stored on it through a combination of screen touches coupled with auditory feedback. The system also supports the storage and management of personal information so that addresses, music, directions, and other supportive information can be readily created and then accessed anytime and anywhere by the PDA user. The paper describes the system along with the related design choices and design rationale. A user study is also reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the design and implementation of a system for controlling mouse pointer using non-verbal sounds such as whistling and humming. Two control modes have been implemented—an orthogonal mode (where the pointer moves with variable speed either horizontally or vertically at any one time) and a melodic mode (where the pointer moves with fixed speed in any direction). A preliminary user study with four users indicates that the orthogonal control was easier to operate and that the humming was less tiring for the users than whistling. The developed system may contribute as an inexpensive, alternative pointing device for people with motor disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses work carried in the context of a study addressing the design and development of a wearable communication aid for people who are illiterate and cannot speak. People with such disabilities often depend on electronic augmentative and alternative communication devices for interpersonal communication. A central theme of the paper, however, is that such products, and products intended for people with disabilities more generally, have characteristics that inadequately attend to users’ needs—in particular many devices pay insufficient regard to the psychological and sociological impact the devices have upon their users. The paper briefly discusses an empirical case study targeted to design and develop the Portland Communication Aid (PCA). The process of establishing user requirements, and in particular the notion of designer-facilitated participatory design, is discussed. The resulting prototype of the PCA is briefly explained along with a discussion of the importance of product semantics in the design of assistive technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some early design work of the Care in the Digital Community research project begun under the EPSRC IRC Network project Equator. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of user requirements in care settings poses interesting methodological challenges. This paper details some methodological options for working in the domestic domain and documents the translation of research into design recommendations. We report on the importance of medication issues in a hostel for former psychiatric patients and present an early prototype of a medication manager designed to be sensitive to the particular requirements of the setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents one company’s perspective on the implementation and provision of universal access (UA) and assistive technology in an industrial setting. The paper addresses the need to provide accessible work-places and also accessible customer services, from legal, commercial and ethical standpoints. The company in question, Royal Mail, is one of the UK’s largest employers and service providers and so has been able to gather employee and customer data often unavailable to smaller organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to empowered user participation and its relevance for the universal design process. It highlights the benefits of user participation and proposes a way to implement it in projects. The paper is based on the experiences of the European project FORTUNE [3]. As an introduction, some basic considerations of the concepts of design for all and universal design are presented. The value of user participation in general and of users with disabilities in particular is discussed. Experience with the state of the art of user involvement in European Research and Development (R&D) projects is reported. The FORTUNE concept of user participation in projects is introduced as a reference model for participation of users with disabilities, and a set of criteria for the assessment of user participation is provided as a practical tool. A brief overview of methodologies for user participation and potential organisational frameworks is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assistive technologies, such as telecare monitoring applications installed in the home, are being promoted to help reduce pressure on health care systems caused by an aging population and as such promise a large market for new products. However, despite many projects undertaken by commercial companies, and despite significant investments both by the companies and by national and international funding programs in the EU, such systems are not widespread. This paper reports on a retrospective study of the development of one early system, HandyHelper. We were interested in what challenges the development team faced and why the system is no longer on the market. Qualitative research methods were applied, including document analysis and interviews of key people involved in its development. Even though the system worked technically, the input of older users was sought, and a pilot installation was run, the development was stopped. The findings from a thematic analysis point to complex issues. Some problems were avoidable, e.g., by providing more support for new users, though other problems point to inherent tensions, such as the different needs of sensor-based security features and interactive services aimed at the older users. Yet other aspects are outside of the developer's control, such as available public funding. We summarize these findings and suggest lessons learnt for future projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human-centered computing and human-centered multimedia computing (HCMC) have emerged as important subfields of computational science which leverage the social and behavioral sciences toward improving the usability of technologies and multimedia systems. While technological solutions have made significant strides for the broader population, individuals with disabilities have been largely ignored, often having to force-fit or adapt themselves to available solutions. The authors first introduced a methodology to enrich HCMC by considering perspectives from individuals with disabilities. They subsequently introduced a person-centered approach to HCMC known as person-centered multimedia computing (PCMC). In the proposed work, they seek to further enrich the PCMC methodology by incorporating interdisciplinary inspirations that take into account the diverse challenges associated with assistive technology design and deployment. Several applications are presented, highlighting how considerations of technology, adaptation and policy from a disability perspective can enrich the design of person-centered accessible technologies. This approach has been implemented through ongoing work on a NSF IGERT project, 'Alliance for Person-centered Accessible Technologies,' details of which are also provided in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors have developed a simulator to help with the design and evaluation of assistive interfaces. The simulator can predict possible interaction patterns when undertaking a task using a variety of input devices and estimate the time to complete the task in the presence of different disabilities. This paper presents a study to evaluate the simulator by considering a representative application of searching icons, which was being used by able-bodied, visually impaired and mobility-impaired people. The simulator predicted task completion times for all three groups with statistically significant accuracy. The simulator also predicted the effects of different interface designs on task completion time accurately. The simulator is used to develop inclusive digital TV interfaces. A case study is presented to investigate accessibility requirements of a representative digital TV interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using computers as an assistive technology for people with various types of physical and perceptual disabilities has been studied extensively. However, research on computer technology used by individuals with Down syndrome is limited. This paper reports an empirical study that investigated the use of three input techniques (keyboard and mouse, word prediction, and speech recognition) by children and young adults with Down syndrome and neurotypical children. The results suggest that the performance of the Down syndrome participants vary substantially. The high performing Down syndrome participants are capable of using the keyboard or the word prediction software to generate text at approximately 6 words per minute with error rates below 5%, which is similar to the performance of the younger neurotypical participants. No significant difference was observed between the keyboard condition and the word prediction condition. Recognition error rate observed under the speech input condition is very high for the Down syndrome participants. The neurotypical children achieved better performance than the participants with Down syndrome on the input tasks and demonstrated different preferences when interacting with the input techniques. Limitations of this study and implications for future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report and reflect on a participatory design (PD) process in which we engaged with people with visual impairments (PVI) over an extended period of time; these interactions were aimed at understanding and assessing PVI experiences about shopping and assistive technologies. In particular, we examined in detail how PVI conduct grocery shopping with the help of different technologies, and found that activities taking place in the homes of PVI reflect aspects of the shopping activity that are challenging but understudied in prior work. Our participants revealed that identifying products that have run short, itemizing needed products in a list, and organizing newly purchased products at home were difficult for them; we also discussed the tools they used and whether the tools did or did not help. We synthesize our findings and explain how the extended PD activities informed our ideas for future design, as well as suggesting principles for PD engagement with PVI participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationship between policy research and policy change, and it provides examples of the policy research outcomes informed by the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless Technologies for People with Disabilities’ (Wireless RERC) policy research process. In 2005 and 2006, the center conducted empirical research, using the policy Delphi polling methodology, to probe key stakeholders’ opinions on the most significant issues surrounding the adoption and use of wireless communication and information technologies by people with disabilities. Drawing on the results of three rounds of polling, the Wireless RERC developed a set of policy options, and “fine-tuned” them using participating stakeholders from the disability community, wireless industry, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the concept of enabling gaze-based interaction for users with high-level motor disabilities to control an avatar in a first-person perspective on-line community. An example community, Second Life, is introduced that could offer disabled users the same virtual freedom as any other user, and so allow disabled users to be able-bodied (should they wish) within the virtual world. A survey of the control demands for Second Life and a subsequent preliminary experiment show that gaze control has inherent problems particularly for locomotion and camera movement. These problems result in a lack of effective gaze control of Second Life, such that control is not practical and show that disabled users who interact using gaze will have difficulties in controlling Second Life (and similar environments). This suggests that these users could once again become disabled in the virtual world by the difficulties in effectively controlling their avatars, and their ‘disability privacy’, or the right to control an avatar as effectively as an able bodied user, and so appear virtually able bodied, will be compromised. Methods for overcoming these difficulties such as the use of gaze aware on-screen assistive tools could overcome these problems, but games manufacturers must design inclusively, so that disabled users may have the right to disability privacy in their Second (virtual) Lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia has been used creatively to entertain and educate, and can also be used for therapeutic and medical purposes. This paper addressed this issue by incorporating multimedia to design and develop an assistive device to help disabled children with speech impairments in mainstream education. The appropriate methodology for developing such an interface was investigated. Relevant multimedia, psychology, social and educational theories were taken into account. Based on this literature review, interfaces to enhance pronunciation were designed, developed and tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaze-control enables people to control a computer by using eye-gaze to select items on screen. Gaze-control is a necessity for people who have lost all motor control of their body and only have control over eye movements. In addition, gaze-control can be the quickest and least tiring option for a far broader group of people with varying disabilities. This paper reports findings from gaze-control user trials involving users from both groups: people who are totally paralyzed, as well as people with a wide range of complex disabilities. The trials conducted involved four different centres supporting people with disabilities in three different European countries. Several gaze-control systems were trialled by a large number of users with varying needs and abilities. The perceived benefits of gaze-control are described, and recommendations for successful assessment and implementation of gaze-control are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process. Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an empirical based study is described which has been conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by the visually impaired community when accessing the Web. The study, involving 30 blind and partially sighted computer users, has identified navigation strategies, perceptions of page layout and graphics using assistive devices such as screen readers. Analysis of the data has revealed that current assistive technologies impose navigational constraints and provide limited information on web page layout. Conveying additional spatial information could enhance the exploration process for visually impaired Internet users. It could also assist the process of collaboration between blind and sighted users when performing web-based tasks. The findings from the survey have informed the development of a non-visual interface, which uses the benefits of multimodal technologies to present spatial and navigational cues to the user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing applications to support older people in their own homes is increasing in popularity and necessity. The increase in supporting older people in the community means that cash-strapped resources are required to be utilised in the most effective manner, which often lends itself to technology deployment, rather than human deployment as the former is perceived as more cost effective. Therefore, the concern arises as to how technology can be designed inclusively and acceptably to the people who are to receive it. This paper discusses the issue of design, and how these concerns have been addressed in a series of projects targeted towards directly supporting people in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the research methods required for the development and validation of a user interface for a wheelchair mounted manipulator for use by severely disabled persons. It explains the construction of the interface using tasks to define the user interface architecture. It outlines the experiments used to evaluate the user responses and draws conclusions about the effectiveness of the whole system. A systematic procedure is defined to obtain numerical estimates of the effectiveness of task analysis for individual use. This approach marries engineering procedures with a consideration of the human interaction. The prototype robot used several gesture recognition systems to achieve a better level of accessibility and usability than other robots used for rehabilitation at this time. Two different approaches to user interfaces were tested with different input devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient keyboard access to Web sites is highly important for many groups of disabled users. However, the current design of most Web sites makes the efficient keyboard navigation nearly impossible. This paper investigates the performance of the keyboard and mouse navigation in Web pages. The comparison is based on the theoretical arguments and on two small studies. The results show that the current amount of keyboard support in common Web sites is far from being sufficient. Typical problems concerning keyboard support in Web sites are discussed, along with possible solutions and the related constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye typing provides a means of communication that is especially useful for people with disabilities. However, most related research addresses technical issues in eye typing systems, and largely ignores design issues. This paper reports experiments studying the impact of auditory and visual feedback on user performance and experience. Results show that feedback impacts typing speed, accuracy, gaze behavior, and subjective experience. Also, the feedback should be matched with the dwell time. Short dwell times require simplified feedback to support the typing rhythm, whereas long dwell times allow extra information on the eye typing process. Both short and long dwell times benefit from combined visual and auditory feedback. Six guidelines for designing feedback for gaze-based text entry are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The requirement for e-inclusion relates to the employment of appropriate development strategies for software applications and services so as to accomplish accessibility and increased interaction quality at deployment time. Inclusive e-learning is the outcome from the application of e-inclusion design and implementation methods in the context of e-learning systems. This paper reports consolidated development experience from the construction of the following e-learning systems: (a) training applications for hand-motor impaired users and for people with cognitive disabilities; (b) learner-adapted courseware and (c) a universally accessible educational computer game. In this context, the primary emphasis is placed on the reporting of the design and implementation aspects to accommodate the inclusive system characteristics, rather than on the typical e-learning software engineering approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Manus manipulator is a wheelchair mounted assistive device for severely motor disabled persons. It is a six degrees of freedom rehabilitation robot (excluding external lift and gripper), the control of which can be improved, especially for users with very limited rest functionality. The approach presented in this paper combines autonomous vision based control with direct user control resulting in a collaborative controller. Results of preliminary user trials show that this technique allows severely disabled persons to manipulate objects more easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and compares the usability problems associated with eye-based and head-based assistive technology pointing devices when used for direct manipulation on a standard graphical user interface. It discusses and examines the pros and cons of eye-based pointing in comparison to the established assistive technology technique of head-based pointing and illustrates the usability factors responsible for the apparent low usage or ‘unpopularity’ of eye-based pointing. It shows that user experience and target size on the interface are the predominant factors affecting eye-based pointing and suggests that these could be overcome to enable eye-based pointing to be a viable and available direct manipulation interaction technique for the motor-disabled community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memory problems are often associated with the ageing process and are one of the commonest effects of brain injury. Electronic memory aids have been successfully used as a compensatory approach to provide reminders to individuals with prospective memory problems. This paper describes the usability issues surrounding the development of a new memory aid rendered on a personal digital assistant (PDA); in addition, it discusses the importance of a user-centred design process for the development of the memory aid and preliminary qualitative findings from interviews and focus groups of disabled or elderly users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Content and services provided by a website should be accessible equally by all users including people with disabilities. Saudi Arabian universities are gradually shifting from traditional classroom teaching to online web-based teaching with the help of learning management systems (LMS). Transformation from traditional teaching system to online teaching systems demands that university website should be accessible by all users regardless of any disability. In this study, accessibility features of the Arabic version of thirty-three Saudi public and private universities are evaluated against thirty-eight success criteria of existing web content accessibility guidelines by using two automatic web accessibility evaluation tools (AChecker and TAW) to ensure that disabled users are able to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the webpages. Accessibility violations detected by AChecker are categorized into 11% known problems and 89% likely and potential problems. Similarly, accessibility violations detected by TAW are categorized into 26% accessibility problems and 74% warnings. Accessibility evaluation results show that known accessibility problems detected by AChecker and TAW require immediate action to resolve but likely problems, potential problems and warnings require human involvement in the accessibility evaluation process. In this study, we proposed the alignment of detected accessibility violations with the WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 success criteria, which will be helpful to further identify the coverage level of automatic accessibility evaluation tool and main accessibility violation domain. Study concludes that automated web accessibility analysis tools are not alone capable to identify all accessibility issues in website due to the fact that they do not understand the way assistive technologies used by disabled persons to interact with web contents. However, the findings of this study recommend further comprehensive empirical research by involving the disabled users to discover the missing accessibility problems in Arabic version of websites. Furthermore, accessibility problems detected by disabled users' further require aligning by accessibility experts with existing guidelines to identify the gap with user problems and existing web content accessibility guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]