Search

This paper addresses the problem of social exclusion for people with disabilities while creating opportunities to provide innovative educational experiences for students without disabilities. Starting from the intersection between coding, digital fabrication, STEM education and disability, we present Design for ALL.L, a framework to create social inclusion through project-based learning programs. The presented framework targets students of different ages, from elementary to university, and guides the development of educational programs to foster awareness and empowerment for people with disabilities at different levels: from developing interaction design projects to meet the special needs of people with disabilities, to rethinking student-teacher interaction as the person with disabilities becomes teacher. Learning from the two case studies described in this paper, we provide insights and reflections on the opportunities and challenges to bridge the goal of social inclusion for people with disability with education through technology.

Textual alternatives are insufficient to meet the needs of people with illiteracy and illectronism. We propose a new interface component named "Voice Labels" to overcome the difficulties of usability of people in such situations. User tests carried out on the ground in Burkina Faso are described. They highlight that the understanding of the interface impacts its manipulation, both at the level of the task (understanding of what it is necessary to do), and at the level of fine motor action (execution of tapping on the touch interface and finger sliding).

This paper presents MulseBox, a new multisensory interactive device, which can propose new percepts of interaction and simulate real-life situation to help learning and transfer of learning in daily-life. Indeed, multisensory interaction is known to improve learning performances. MulseBox can easily be enriched with real objects and virtual objects. It is evolving. It answers a need highlighted by the scientific literature: the lack of a unique multisensory device to work with on common problematics. Indeed, we found that eight disciplines at least are investigating multisensory with the shared secondary objectives to increase users' Quality of Experience and to design for all (that is considering disabilities). MulseBox is a device allowing researchers to solve identified problematics. An exploratory study showed first promising results about MulseBox relevance.

Search and rescue (SAR) operations are often nearly computer-technology-free due to the fragility and connectivity needs of current information communication technology (ICT). In this design fiction, we envision a world where SAR uses augmented reality (AR) and the surplus labor of volunteers during crisis response efforts. Unmanned aerial vehicles, crowdsourced mapping platforms, and concepts from video game mapping technologies can all be mixed to keep SAR operations complexity-free while incorporating ICTs. Our scenario describes a near-future SAR operation with currently available technology being assembled and deployed without issue. After our scenario, we discuss socio-technical barriers for technology use like technical fragility and overwhelming complexity. We also discuss how to work around those barriers and how to use video games as a testbed for SAR technology. We hope to inspire more resilient ICT design that is accessible without training.

While sociocommunicative behaviors of the autistic population are frequently pathologized, the researchers find evidence supporting strength-based (SB) approaches which utilize the natural talents, strengths, interests and communication styles of individuals with autism, resulting in higher degrees of well-being. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) founded in SB approaches are visually designed, simple to use, and are also complex in functionality. Because of the heterogeneity of individuals with autism, personalization and customization are key features for applications to be accessible to a wide variety of user-experiences and needs. By using natural autistic communication-orientation and design preferences, it is possible that learned skills will become more generalizable and that other outcome types will be encouraged. As a key feature of SB approaches, ICT development must incorporate and collaborate with the autistic community these technologies seek to support.

The Product Line Architecture (PLA) defines a common design for all products derived from the software product line. PLA design is a high-effort task since it is influenced by several factors, such as feature modularity, PLA variability and extensibility. Given the complexity and variety of such influential factors, the use of search-based algorithms have recently been explored to derive PLA designs in the seminal approach named Multi-Objective Approach for Product-Line Architecture Design (MOA4PLA). MOA4PLA produces a set of alternative PLA designs that improve the different optimized factors. Besides the optimization of these factors, the obtained PLA designs should ideally have no architectural smell. An architectural smell may harm not only the PLA variability and extensibility, but also other non-functional attributes. However, no previous study was performed to investigate if and to what extent state-of-the-art search-based approaches, such as MOA4PLA, adversely introduce architectural smells in resulting designs. Thus, we performed an exploratory investigation about the presence of architectural smells in a set of PLA designs obtained from MOA4PLA. Such an investigation was also useful to derive guidelines for: (i) improving the resulting search-based PLA designs, or (ii) preventing upfront the emergence of architectural smells in PLA designs automatically obtained with search-based approaches.

Participatory design in socioeconomic development is an\ud invariably political activity fraught with both political as well as ethical entanglements. ICT for development (ICTD) - often involved in contexts of great inequality and heteogeneity - places these in especially sharp relief. This paper draws attention to these entanglements as well as what they mean for the role and practice of designer-researchers practicing PD. We then draw upon our experiences in an active PD project to highlight approaches that serve as a partial response to these entanglements. These presents both limitations as well as orientations for our role as designer-researchers in engaging with and organising PD work in ICTD - providing a starting point for answering the question “who participates with whom in what and why?”

Many people with care needs are prevented to participate in travel and tourism activities because of limitations imposed by the design of the built environment. Increasing the Universal Design qualities of hotel accommodations is one way to support the ambitions of accessible tourism. In this proposal, we describe an interactive workshop in which participants co-create a Universal Design hotel room, based on their own experiences, together with user-experts and other stakeholders1.

Objectives - This study reported in this article aimed to identify: i) the concerns of the actual research related to the application of the Design for All paradigm in the development of information technology applications to support older adults? ii) the types of applications based on information technology that are being developed according to the Design for All paradigm to support older adults; and iii) the maturity level of these applications. Methods - A systematic review was performed based on a search of the literature. Results - A total of 31 proof-of-concepts prototypes were identified targeting the following application areas: special purpose machines, virtual assistants, social networking, messaging services, intelligent environments, information services and healthcare. Conclusion - Although the studies included in this systematic review present positive impact of the application of the Design of All paradigm, there is a lack of robust trials with strong experimental evidence.

Nowadays, houses are being equipped with new smart products and smart sensors, from multiple manufacturers, each offering their own options for interaction with providing varying degrees of usability and user experience. This diverse nature of smart homes and buildings, in general, poses new challenges to interaction design and accessibility. To tackle them, human-building interaction needs to move from articulating different interactive artifacts towards an holistic view of the house as an interactive ecosystem. In a joint effort with Bosch Termotecnologia, S.A., and profiting from recent contributions including an architecture and framework supporting multimodal Interaction, the authors aim to explore novel ways of approaching interaction design with a smart house and proposing smart home applications for all. This paper presents the status of this ongoing work, in the scope of project Smart Green Homes, proposing how multimodal interaction can be supported in the scenario of a smart home and showing first results of tackling human-building interaction through a home assistant serving a family in their daily interactions with the house.

There is a continued increase in the integration of intelligent devices in our homes. Making these new complex ecosystems accessible poses great challenges, stemming from the very nature of the Home (several spaces separated by walls), the diversity of inhabitants (e.g., children, adults, older adults, persons with temporary or permanent impairments), the tasks they perform (e.g., cooking) or their native languages. In this context, an assistant capable of spoken and written conversation with the inhabitants can be a valuable help in making a household more accessible for several groups of persons, if not for all. This paper presents information regarding the development and first results of such an assistant targeting an Accessible Smart Home for a Portuguese speaking family with some accessibility needs.

SPIDe (Semio-Participatory Interaction Design) is an interaction design process based on the association between Semiotic Engineering and Participatory Design techniques. It consists in three stages: (i) contextual analysis; (ii) interface engineering; and (iii) evaluation. Although SPIDe may include cultural aspects of interaction design, other aspects should be considered, such as different skills and disabilities. This paper presents partial results of SPIDe adaptation to include visually impaired users in a semio-participatory interaction design process using action-research as research method. Adjustments in the contextual analysis stage of SPIDe were recommended, including the Storytelling technique, enabling visually impaired people to participate as coauthor in interaction design process.

This paper presents qualitative studies of cohousing, a model where individual homes cluster around common space, share some meals weekly, and make community decisions together via consensus. It analyzes 80 descriptions of cohousing community websites to reveal the values common to cohousing, as well as site visits to three cohousing communities in the USA. These consist of tours, attending multiple common meals, and interviews with residents to gain insight into cohousing practices and experiences. The goal of this work is to understand how cohousing is lived and structured with an eye towards considering this model of living from an HCI perspective. Keeping that in mind, this paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of cohousing to existing and emerging trends in HCI such as civics, technologies for building community, and how cohousing might unravel the concept of a "smart home."

This paper addresses the design of user interfaces for aging adults. Older people differ vastly in how aging affects their perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities. When it comes to interface design for aging users, the "one design for all" approach fails. We present first results from attempts to extend ability-based design to the aging population. We describe a novel approach using age-related differences as the principle of optimizing interactive tasks. We argue that, to be successful, predictive models must take into account how users adapt their behavioral strategies as a function of their abilities. When combined with design optimization, such models allow us to investigate optimal designs more broadly, examining trade-offs among several design factors. We present first results on optimizing text entry methods for user groups with different age-related declines.

According to the latest research by the European Community and ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics) surveys, Europe has the highest average age for its population. According to those data, in the near future, it could be necessary to move from a welfare model based on the centralization of care systems, to a system based on the distribution of certain healthcare facilities [1]. This means that the ageing population is ever increasing, thanks to better lifestyles, innovative medical care and wider access to different services. This work seeks to observe and analyse key implications of architectural and interior design features and new, non-invasive, interactive technologies, related to user interaction design and usability of environments within the housing scenario. Those themes are particularly related to ageing people who live in autonomously or semi-autonomously within their own homes or assisted homes.For example, according to the "community care" approach, people could live as long as possible in their familiar environment, by bringing health and social care services into people's home, providing assistance for everyday needs and re-activating the potential of local communities. Two vital aspects of the life of an individual, in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle despite ever-changing conditions, are domestic autonomy and good sustained relationships within the neighbourhood. This leads to an interesting research issue: could houses and smart appliances have the potential to improve autonomy and people's quality of life? Which kind of methods, tools and scenarios could enhance wellbeing and healthy conditions, while reducing time and costs?Data, analysed in different scenarios, starting from a worldwide and then focusing on Europe and Italian context, provides a clear view of house's architectural and technological features and user feedback, useful to define a future household scenario suitable to meet the needs of a growing population.The final result of this part of the research is composed of a series of blueprints called "User Feedback Evaluation" which enable people in understanding and categorising the classes of systems, aids, smart devices and features that a barrier-free house should have for improving living conditions of ageing residents. In a second stage of the research the user feedback analysis could bring the definition of a new Design approach for enabling user and facilitating professionals. This is achieved by developing a holistic method and merging innovative tools and approaches with existing ones, in order to foresee the future needs of the ageing people through provision of additional unobtrusive Smart devices. The smart appliances should be integrated in accessible, barrier-free, "Long-life friendly" houses, to allow the senior residents to remain for longer in their own home in a safer and autonomous way.

The present paper proposes a new adaptive smart kitchen environment able to support different users with several typologies of impairment (i.e., visual, motor, cognitive) in performing cooking activities. This system is managed through an adaptive user interface, which guides the user in food preparation according to users' capabilities and needs and permits household appliances controlling. Results of a preliminary usability evaluation has shown that the proposed solution is accessible and highly usable for users with some limitations such elderly with mild to moderate dementia and adult people with moderate retinopathy and rheumatoid arthritis.

Research on technology for disabled and older people has expanded considerably in the past 25 years. This meeting will critically review that research and the role human computer interaction has played in it. It will then consider how human computer interaction research can positively contribute to the further development of the area and what directions research can most usefully follow.

In recent years, some HCI researchers (e.g., Durick et al. 2013 and Light et al 2015) pointed out that a dominant approach in ICT design for the aged is led by deficit models of ageing people; viewing the aged as a homogenous group of frail, needy, and passive people who are incapable of learning/using new ICTs. My research seeks to counter this dominant approach by focusing upon ways to design information and communication technologies (ICT) to support older people in Saudi Arabia to age-well. The positive approach I adopt will be grounded upon a more balanced picture of ageing people; looking at ageing as a process and describing it in terms of success, productivity, active participation and quality of life. Through this, I hope to offer approaches to ICT design that can support ageing people's independence and agency as they age.

International audience; In order to overcome the difficulties of interaction with digital documents, the research can be conducted in two main directions: (1) design or improve techniques which make reading or entering data in digital documents easier, or (2) modify the document to make it more accessible using existing tools. In the context of non-visual access to digital documents, these directions, or combining them, have caused a significant scientific production. The first step is to design sensory substitution devices [1]. The second step, which could be involved in the areas of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR), is transforming the documents to adapt them with the constraints of a non-visual interaction (oral, touch or multimodal). We propose a solution that combines these two steps to solve a main difficulty encountered by blind persons when browsing the Web on touch-screen devices: the lack of overall perception of Web pages. First experiments show promising results in the paradigm "design for all".; Dans l'objectif de pallier les difficultés d'interactions avec des documents, la recherche peut être menée selon deux grandes directions : (1) concevoir ou améliorer les techniques facilitant la lecture/saisie des documents, ou (2) modifier le document pour le rendre plus accessible avec les outils existants. Dans le cadre de l'accès non visuel, ces paradigmes, parfois combinés, ont suscité une importante production scientifique. La première voie s'attache à la conception de dispositifs de substitution sensorielle [1]. La seconde, qui peut s'appuyer sur les domaines du Traitement Automatique des Langues (TAL) et de la Recherche d'Information (RI), transforme les documents afin de les adapter aux contraintes d'une interaction non visuelle (orale, tactile ou multimodale). Nous proposons un dispositif qui emprunte à ces deux solutions pour résoudre une difficulté rencontrée par les non-voyants lors de la navigation d'une page Web sur tablette tactile : l'absence de perception globale de la page. Les premières expérimentations offrent des résultats prometteurs dans un paradigme « design for all ».

Assistive robots that address different impairments and continuously changing capabilities by providing manifold interactions based on profiles are not targeted in current research. Substantiated by a survey of human-robot interaction for assistive systems, we claim the need for establishing the innovative research topic of Accessible Human-Robot Interaction (AHRI). It is shown that limitations or loss of motoric, sensory, and mental capabilities as well as multiple impairments and resulting barriers regarding interaction, communication and perception are not sufficiently incorporated in designs of assistive robots. To achieve a design for all, fundamental research on varying needs, capabilities, and preferences along with derivation of profiles and developments of new adaptive and adaptable interaction concepts is necessary.

We share results from a multi-day design workshop with 24 immigrant and refugee teenagers from Myanmar (Burma). The workshop focused on information technology and services that intersect with the crucial role of the youth as information navigators for their families, friends and communities. ICT design serves as a lens through which one can learn about the experiences of youth in global migration, especially when incorporating multiple cultural probes as part of the extended design process, in the form of games, drawings, stories, and skits. Findings show Burmese culture and refugee/immigration experiences are manifested in the teens' ICT wayfaring practices in the U.S., and that the youth creatively play invaluable, albeit sometimes hidden, roles in systemically supporting everyday information and technology needs across communities.

The idea behind this design is to create a design with which it is possible to change the perception that the individual has with music, changing therefore their relationship with it. The result is a product of the category design for all, to be used by both deaf and able-bodied individuals without difference. MUVIB is composed of two mutually connected bracelets that allow music to transform into vibration. To the able bodied, the interaction with the sound, and in our particular case with a particular type of sound, music as can be of various nature. For the deaf the concept changes, while this diverse ability does not allow them to enjoy all the physical and mental benefits that music put in place. For all these reasons we decided to work on this issue, thinking of a device that could flatten this difference in perception, placing both targets on a level field. Thanks to MUVIB the hearing and the deaf will be able to benefit from the effects that these two vibrators bracelets bring the entire body, creating different situations where come into play factors such as pleasure, relaxation and adrenaline. MUVIB is an open source project created with components readily available on the market, in order to allow everyone the reconstruction. In this way, the end user is involved in the production of the product, excluding the need to have a company producing and multiplying the possibility' for the dissemination of the product.

We report on designing natural ICT tools and solutions for integration into a non-ICT workflow at a Brazilian chronic care Center. Our healthcare worker-centered approach for continuous life-care contrasts from the more typical acute care situations that tend to be patient-centered or administrator-centered. Chronic mental care focuses on improving patients' life quality as they age in contrast to acute care. Therapy is collaboratively preparing patients to establish a routine for a normal life. Our main findings from our worker-centered design are: 1. Supporting workers communication and workflow using an online social intranet is effective, 2. Designing for appropriation as well as adoption is important and 3. Public workflow visualization can influence workers behavior. Our approach may apply to other long-term assistant scenarios as nursing homes, teaching and parenting.

"Universal design" is the process of creating products that are usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, operating within the widest possible range of situations; whereas "accessibility" primarily refers to design for people with disabilities. While the focus of accessibility is disabilities, research and development in accessibility brings benefits to everyone, particularly users with situational limitations, including device limitations and environmental limitations. Awareness and understanding of the benefits of web accessibility to users without disabilities is growing in some areas with the rapid increase of web-enabled devices such as mobile phones, tablets, televisions, and more; with the increasing focus on the growing number of older web users; and with wider web reach in areas with high incidence of low literacy, low bandwidth, older technology, etc. Although there is significant overlap between designing for accessibility and designing for situational limitations, addressing one set of needs does not necessarily provide sufficient solutions for other needs. Keeping accessibility focused on disabilities encourages research and development on meeting the specific needs of people with disabilities. This communications paper explains the importance of "accessibility" continuing to focus on people with disabilities, while further integrating accessibility with web design, development, and research in other areas, including those covered under universal design and design for all. It also describes how the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) are working to address accessibility and related user needs throughout the technologies of the Web, and invites all interested parties to participate in research and development to further integrate accessibility for people with disabilities in ways that benefit all.

This paper discusses an exploratory approach for identifying potential ICT design problems in a local community through collaboration with its members. We are currently participating in the activities of a volunteer community in Syria, where members appropriate Facebook and other online tools to collaborate and organize. In such context, conducting participatory design is not straightforward and needs to be problematized. For instance, what is the desired outcome of participation? Who participates in what? And what are the suitable tools? Here we focus on the value of participation in defining relevant design problems in collaboration with the community. We present our research process where we adopt an ethnographic approach guided by the works of sociologists Howard Becker, Juliet Corbin, and Anselm Strauss. We finally describe how this approach also allows us to move from participant observation towards participatory design.

In recent years, the wellness of seniors has become more important than ever before in our rapidly aging society. In the U. S., approximately 11,000 community senior centers provide a broad spectrum of programs for seniors to improve their overall health and wellness in their community. Although numerous studies have reported on the various benefits of participation in such programs, little is known about how information and communications technology (ICT) can support seniors' participation in this practice. We describe findings from a two-phase qualitative study using semi-structured interviews, site visits, and focus groups with seniors and staff of senior centers located in urban and suburban areas of Chicago, IL and Tampa, FL. Based on the results, we discuss design implications for technologies that could facilitate seniors' engagement with their local community including senior centers.

This paper presents the elaboration of a progressive implementation model for WCAG, centered on the notions of access to information and essential needs of users. MIPAW's main goal is to serve as a framework for the elaboration of progressive enhancement methodologies, of measurement systems of the real level of accessibility, and the setting up of efficient quality assurance management systems. Based on state of the art, real-world experience, and expertise in accessibility, as well as quality assurance areas, the project has the ambition of providing methodological tools better suited to the constraints of web industrialization, while preserving the deployment of real user-centric accessibility. MIPAW is a project lead as part of the activities of the AccessiWeb GTA (Workgroup on Accessibility), and has received active support from 16 of the most prominent French companies in the area of expertise in digital accessibility.

Accessibility solutions for people with disabilities are key drivers for innovation and technology. Developing accessibility solutions benefits everyone and adds to the quality of all our lives. This communication paper explores some of the web accessibility challenges for people with disabilities in developing regions and discusses how accessibility solutions for these users would benefit many other users, regardless of abilities, age, skills, education, languages, cultures, economics, and devices.

Applying information and communication technologies to development (ICTD) is emerging as an interesting and motivating research area in computer science and engineering. It spans application areas from healthcare to transportation, and requires the use of computing skills from networking to user interface design. Addressing problems of developing regions and under-served communities lets students explore a different part of the ICT design space, leading to new implementation and research questions. ICTD is also an area that has the potential to excite students about the CSE field more generally, with its emphasis on enabling social benefits with technology, and is rich in possibilities for interesting student projects. In this paper we report on two offerings of a course at the University of Washington that introduce students to the field by way of 1) reading papers from literature in the area to gain exposure to this very different design mindset and 2) doing practical projects that engage students in engineering problems under unique design constraints. Our hope is that CSE educators may find our experiences useful in identifying an approach to integrating the field of ICTD into their curricula.

This paper will present the design and experimentation of the RAMPE system intended for the assistance and information of visually disabled/impaired people so that they can increase their mobility and autonomy in public transports. The system is intended to equip bus or tramway stops or to be installed in connection link. It is based either on a remote control (RC) or on a smart hand-held WiFi enabled device like a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) able to communicate by a WiFi connection with fixed equipment in stations to retrieve travelers information.This system has been evaluated by Visually Disabled People (VDP) in real public transport environment in the city of Lyon in France. Ergonomics data has been collected during the experiment and analyzed, showing the usability of such devices by VDP and hence also by Visually Impaired Peoples (VIP).

This communication paper introduces the "Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation" (WAI-AGE) project, a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) project. It is funded by the European Commission under its 6th Framework Programme (FP6) of the Information Society Technologies (IST), and includes activities to: better understand the needs of the ageing community in the context of existing Web accessibility guidelines; work with the ageing community to obtain more direct input and contribution into the development of solutions and strategies for Web accessibility; revise existing and develop new educational materials to better reflect the accessibility needs of the ageing community on the Web; and to pursue standards coordination and harmonisation to promote the adoption and implementation of a common set of Web accessibility guidelines. This paper delivers some insights on the current progress of the project, and describes some of the expected outcomes. This paper also highlights some of the opportunities for researchers, experts, developers, industry, and users to contribute to the outcomes of the project.

In this paper we describe our research on unified media experience for the end-users. The research focused on unified mobile media player supporting different media types with one unified UI structure and design for all media types. The created UI structure and design was based on our earlier study of finding an optimal information architecture model for mobile multimedia devices. Unified mobile media player demo was then implemented and validated in Finland and Hong Kong, and after analyzing the validation findings the UI structure and design were updated. Our research findings show that there are similarities between different media types, and it is possible to create unified UI structure and design, but also some media type specific restrictions exists.

Accessibility and inclusive design is an important aspect of ICT education. This involves not only developing technical skills required to create accessible technology, but also fostering an awareness of the diversity amongst ICT users in terms of their capabilities and access environment. This session explores how CS learners can achieve not only skills in inclusive design but also acquire a more in-depth understanding of diversity and this influences the design of the ICT they produce.

The present paper introduces the telecare user experience guidelines under development in the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), www.etsi.org, co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA.This work is performed under the policy framework defined by the European Commission's e-Europe 2005 action plan, by and in close collaboration between major industry players and ETSI.

In this paper, we describe why designers need to look beyond the twin aims of designing for the 'typical' user and designing "prostheses". Making accessible interfaces for older people is a unique but many-faceted challenge. Effective applications and interface design needs to address the dynamic diversity of the human species. We introduce a new design paradigm, Design for Dynamic Diversity, and suggest a methodology to assist its achievement, User Sensitive Inclusive Design.To support our argument for a new form of design we report experimentation, which indicates that older people have significantly different and dynamically changing needs. We also put forward initial solutions for Designing for Dynamic Diversity, where memory, vision and confidence provide the parameters for discussion, and illustrate the importance of User Sensitive Inclusive Design in establishing a framework for the operation of Design for Dynamic Diversity.

This paper proposes to improve knowledge of user experience issues in the general population.

In this paper, we describe why designers need to look beyond the twin aims of designing for the 'typical' user and designing "prostheses." Making accessible interfaces for older people is a unique but many faceted challenge. Effective applications and interface design needs to address the dynamic diversity of the human species. We introduce a new design paradigm, Design for Dynamic Diversity, and a methodology to assist its achievement, User Sensitive Inclusive Design.

This workshop aims to advance an understanding of the concepts and principles of universal design and extrapolate on their relevance to Information Society Technologies. Specifically, the workshop will seek to review methods and techniques currently in use, ongoing work and future research issues, and establish the foundations of a conceptual frame of reference for applying universal design into Information Society Technologies in general, and HCI in particular.