Computers Helping People with Special Needs

Optical Character Recognition software (OCR) are important tools for obtaining accessible texts. We propose the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) in order to develop pattern recognition algorithms capable of recognizing both normal texts and formulae. We present an original improvement of the backpropagation algorithm. Moreover, we describe a novel image segmentation algorithm that exploits fuzzy logic for separating touching characters.

While sighted mathematicians have long accepted the need for a uniform way of writing math, the situation amongst the blind is different: Rather than standardising, the tradition has been to develop language-, country- or even institution-specific codes for expressing math in Braille in addition to the national Braille codes for literary Braille. Using the RoboBraille service as a foundation, the paper describes an automated and flexible system that can shred, transcribe and reassemble documents containing math into Braille. Using existing components, the Braille Math extension to RoboBraille enables Braille readers to mix and match amongst supported national Braille codes and Braille math regimes, including Braille math systems like Nemeth and Marburg, and mainstream formats such as LaTeX and MathML. Finally, the paper discusses how the system may be enhanced to handle charts, graphs and tables.

Most math schoolbooks consist of practical and theoretical parts where the theoretical parts guide the students and explain the strategies on how to solve a given problem. These theoretical parts contain visual didactic information where the problem solving processes are explained using pictorial and spatial representations. So far, there is no workaround for non-visual user interfaces such as refreshable braille displays to represent this implicit visual information. This affects learning ability of visually impaired and blind students. In this paper, we present the results from analyzing these implicit notations and the possible strategies to help visually impaired and blind students benefiting from visual didactic information in math schoolbooks.

The DAISY 3 MathML Modular Extension allows all of the features of a Digital Talking Book to work for math, just as they do for literary text. But this extension does not specify details about advanced MathML players on the localization (i.e. support of a specific native language), support of multilingual mathematical or textual content, cultural differences or user preferences. In this work we present the methodology, we have developed to evaluate in a systematic way the correctness of the Math-to-Speech rendering by investigating specific steps during the production and rendering phases for non-English DAISY Digital Talking Math Books. We define four types of errors in the math expressions: deletions (D), insertions (I), substitutions (S) and translations (T). More-over, we propose an appropriate corpus of mathematical expressions that facilitates the evaluation of the proposed methodology. Then, we have applied the above in the case of the Greek language, a not widespread inflectional natural language. The results of the evaluation for the Greek language and the Math-Player working with the ReadHear player are for each category of math expressions in the whole corpus: trigonometry = 2D, fractions = 3D, matrices = 18T & 4D, integrals = 10T, 12S & 4D, limits = 2T, 12S & 4D, powers-indicators = 8T, 4S & 1D and sets = 9T, 1S, 5D & 3I.

A new method to recognize STEM contents in “e-born PDF,” which is produced originally from an electronic file such as a Microsoft-Word document, LaTeX system, etc., is developed. Character information (the character code, the font type and the coordinates on a page) extracted directly from a document is combined with analysis technologies in Math OCR. It improves recognition rate for STEM contents in e-born PDF remarkably, compared with ordinary image-based OCR approaches. This new method is actually implemented in our math OCR system (InftyReader).

We present a polyfill solution for replacing inaccessible images of molecules with fully web-accessible chemistry diagrams. Thereby marked up bitmap images on a client web site are extracted, server side recognised and semantically enriched to generate scalable vector graphics (SVG) with embedded chemical information. These graphics are then re-inserted into the original web page providing readers with accessibility features such as speech output and interactive exploration together with synchronised highlighting and magnification. Our solution works for most combinations of browsers and screen reading software on all major desktop platforms, and while it is currently only implemented for chemical diagrams, it is extensible to other STEM subject areas.

We developed P-CUBE as a tangible programming education tool for visually impairments or inexperienced persons in PC operation. Users are able to control a mobile robot simply by positioning blocks on a mat. The fundamental programming concepts taught by P-CUBE consist of three elements: sequences, branches and loops. These systems uses radio frequency identification (RFID) systems to identify the position of blocks or cards on the mat. Blocks utilize RFID tags alone. P-CUBE is designed to operate via tactile information for visually impaired.We report on the system configurations of P-CUBE and programming workshop held for visually impairments. Then, we discuss merits of tangible programming tools using RFID systems.

Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigated. This paper describes studies involving the latest revision of the most widely used system: MathPlayer 4. This version includes features to allow navigation of mathematical expressions. Students with blindness or low vision used NVDA + MathPlayer to read Microsoft Word documents with math problems in them. The results were compared with the same students reading similar documents using their favorite modality (braille or large print). The results showed that speech augmented with navigation resulted in similar comprehension rates compared to when students used their preferred modality. This is an important finding because electronic documents are often available in situations where braille or large print documents are not.

Textual representations of UML are basic requisites to make UML modeling accessible for visually impaired people. The accessibility, however, varies depending on the concrete realization. Constructing and rating accessible notations is challenging because the notation has to consider requirements of various assistive techniques including screen readers with audio and/or braille output. Neither accessibility metrics for existing textual notations nor comprehensive guidelines for constructing such notations exist. To bridge this gap, we design an interview for rating the accessibility of notations for UML class diagrams and conduct it with six participants for four textual notations. We use the results and related work to derive general design guidelines for accessible textual UML notations. The guidelines allow constructing accessible notations without deep understanding of assistive technologies and can serve as a benchmark for existing notations.

Participatory and inclusive approaches to research have become more common as researchers recognize the benefits of enabling the meaningful involvement of representative community users in the development of accessible technologies. One of the major challenges in this context is how the involvement of community members can be appropriately supported in project-related activities: payment for time and contributions is a particularly difficult and longstanding issue. This paper discusses the inclusive development of an online Timebank involving community members with intellectual disabilities. The TimeBank is conceived as a tool that enables people to contribute their different expertise on the basis of time, rather than monetary reward. The development process of the TimeBank is described as well as the challenges faced by the research team. There is much potential in the Timebank idea, although considerable further research is needed to establish an accessible, usable, credible and trustworthy resource.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) has been statutorily confirmed and recognised by the German Bundestag and Bundesrat without limitation. The resulting obligations have been adopted by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia by means of an action plan called ‘One Society for all – NRW Inclusive’. Reflecting the accessibility focus of Article 9 UNCRPD, the ‘Agentur Barrierefrei NRW (Accessibility Agency NRW)’ covers this field of action comprehensively. Main focuses are the built environment, qualification and sensitisation of decision makers, survey of public buildings, qualification and empowerment of users and there organisations, accessibility in the European context, easy language and Assistive Technology (AT) with its links to accessibility and Universal Design (UD). Actions are widely based on user involvement and participation and produce outcomes within the scope of UNCRPD’s general obligations.

New technology promises high potential for empowerment and training in the health area. Effectiveness of training, however, is based upon realiable and frequent usage of technology. To achieve this goal we propose an approach based upon psychological models of motivation, namely self-determination theory. Using the example of patients with acquired speech motor impairments as dysarthria due to Parkinson’s disease, we outline design strategies for tailored and adaptive technology that is embedded in speech therapy and allows for autonomous usage. “ISi-Speech” profits from an interdisciplinary team of technicians, speech therapists and psychologists who were recently funded by the German ministry of Education and Research to build a digital training system for treatment of dysarthria. End users will be involved into design and formative evaluation processes.

This paper offers some reflections on key concepts to be considered when developing policies related to assistive technology provision in the light of the UN Convention. The starting point is the Position Paper issued by AAATE and EASTIN in 2012, which defines the mission of a service delivery system (SDS) as “ensuring that all people with disabilities can access appropriate assistive solutions that are able to support autonomy in their life environment”. From the organizational viewpoint, we can identify three main SDS models: the “medical model”, the “social model” and the “consumer model”. A reasonable criterion for establishing a boundary between products that require medical models and those that don’t is that of clinical risk. The more the system moves from a medical to a social or consumer model, the more should it be based on user empowerment approaches. The GATE initiative of the World Health Organization and some national policies (such as the Australian NDIS assistive technology strategy) are firmly built upon user empowerment approaches. End-users education as well as the availability of “super partes” assistive technology information (i.e. independent of commercial interest) also plays a fundamental role in user empowerment. The paper offers a quick survey of the main information systems available today worldwide, and presents the latest achievement of today’s major information resource, the European Assistive Technology Information Network.

There is an affluence of standards (de jure standards as well as de facto standards in the fields covered by eAccessibility and eInclusion) – not to mention legal regulations and guidelines of all sorts. The awareness of the need and importance of standards is comparatively low, because (a) standards often have to be purchased and (b) the information on existing standards is not available in user-friendly form. This paper outlines difficulties and possible solutions concerning the application of pertinent standards from the point of view of the EU project IN LIFE. It further analyses gaps with respect to ICT-supported H-H communication as well as H-M communication, which is an important aspect under the perspective of user empowerment and autonomy.

We developed an internship program with a special subsidiary company in order to educate engineers with an inclusive mind. A participating student has designed and manufactured equipment for workers with disabilities during the internship. We found that the student learned relations between major subjects at engineering and production techniques through interviews. In addition, we also considered the program is related to knowledge management. This suggests that the internship program with a special subsidiary company is one possible way for growing inclusive minded engineers.

Cloud Computing can be a key driver for innovation and transformation in learning and teaching. The School on the Cloud network, consisting of 57 partners from multiple disciplines in 18 European countries, aims to explore this technology to find new dynamic ways of delivering education. One key result published thus far analyses 59 existing good-practice case studies exploring the impact of the Cloud on personalized learning for pupils with special needs. It also discusses how teachers can use new technologies as a value added component in inclusive education.

Achieving inclusive eSocieties has prompted a focus on universally designed IT-solutions. One strategy to ensure high quality universal design is identifying methodological best-practices. Literature voice different paradigms and points to diverging user-centeredness. This paper explores strategies and epistemological views employed by Norwegian experts through survey research. Results confirm a user-centered methodological approach is common. Both mechanical worldviews and a no-contact strategy as well as high-contact and involved strategies are identified. The paper discusses methodological traditions in the sample as well as successfulness of survey items.

Calls to promote greater participations of persons with disabilities in society usually deal with the use of various IC-based technologies. Many of initiatives also deal with the quality of life (QoL) of those persons and discuss possible impacts of ICT use on that quality. By comparing persons with and without disabilities, this study examined the extent to which (1) individuals used IC-based technologies, (2) their QoL was improved due to the use of those technologies, and (3) this use (USE) was related to that QoL improvement (IQoL). It was found that both USE and IQoL were lower for persons with disabilities, and that correlation between USE and IQoL was stronger for those persons. The study examines the role of education and its potential to improve the QoL for persons with disabilities as a result of better use of ICTs.

The inclusion of people with disabilities and their circle of stakeholders in the design and deployment of digital assistive technology is increasingly being recognized as important. The Do-It-Yourself Assistive Technology (DIY-AT) approach investigates methodologies and tools to support accessible making practices. In prior work, we successfully used a DIY-AT approach to develop TalkBox, an open-source direct-selection communication board for those with little or no functional verbal communication. In this paper, we describe a follow-up project in which we use TalkBox as a prototyping platform to facilitate co-design and co-fabrication of DIY-AT. We present results from (1) a workshop in which users with disabilities and their parents/caregivers fabricated their own TalkBoxes, and (2) a collaborative co-design session with a non-verbal child and his mother wherein the potential for TalkBox variants led to novel design decisions. We illustrate the outcome of our process by describing the multi-vocabulary variant called Hot Swappable TalkBox, in which RFID technology is used to afford easy switching among different vocabulary sets.

Currently there is a lack of software solutions available which are tailored to the needs of people with acquired brain injuries at the work place. Therefore, an application for mobile devices called Electronic Job Coach (EJO) is proposed to support different cognitive challenges which occur especially during the work like e.g. short term memory which results in difficulties in remembering the work process or the use of tools. EJO uses a client server architecture for mobile devices. The first prototype is introduced and a short impression the further work process is presented. EJO is a joint activity of the technical advisory service of the LVR - Integrationsamt (Integration Agency - IA) and the TU Dortmund University.

Accessibility functions on touchscreen computers improved user experience of people with visual impairments. Regardless of this situation, they have some problems using touchscreen interfaces including smartphones and tablets. The reason includes the arrangements of accessible objects may differ for visually impaired users because of the manipulations under screen readers are different from those without screen readers, the characteristics of desired object sizes and arrangements on the touchscreen computers for the visually impaired remain unclear. The purpose of this research is to find a way for the visually impaired to accurately and efficiently manipulate the keyboard. This study especially seeks to find the optimum conditions for the number and sizes of buttons (including the area) for the visually impaired. For this purpose, we developed an experimental application.

Older adults, particularly the frail elderly, have limited communication support options other than those that have been designed for those with disabilities. The technologies supporting people with disabilities have traditionally relied on single-purpose, heavy and costly “made for the disabled” systems, most of which are outdated and designed to comply with byzantine funding frameworks instead of being designed around user needs. Some of these devices could be replaced by mobile apps and accessories at lower costs. The Tecla Shield, an assistive technology tool, has been designed to allow single-switch access to mobile devices, but frail elderly users were not considered in its development. The needs of frail elderly people may be considerably different than younger people, because communication and physical access to common devices such as televisions, lights and beds, may be more important to this user population. Two frail elderly people were interviewed about their needs for a device such as the Tecla Shield and how they may see using it within their current environment. These two individuals thought that the new version of the Tecla Shield, called EVA, would enable them to have more direct control over devices that they normally had to ask for assistance to use - enabling them to decide when and where they needed assistance, or not. However, concerns were expressed about the size and mounting system as well as the learning curve.

A mobile application that detects an item’s color is potentially very useful for visually impaired people. However, users could run into difficulties when centering the target item in the mobile device camera field of view. To address this problem, in this contribution we propose a mobile application that detects the color of the item pointed by the user with one finger. In its current version, the application requires the user to wear a marker on the finger used for pointing. A preliminary evaluation conducted with blind users confirms the usefulness of the application, and encourages further development.

Persons with cognitive impairments form a diverse group, with limitations in one or more types of mental tasks such as conceptualizing, planning, remembering and understanding numbers and symbols. It has been recognized that current accessibility guidelines provide limited support for these persons and that more work is needed. ETSI has established a team of experts, STF 488, which intends to produce (1) a set of usage needs of persons with cognitive impairments when using mobile devices and applications and (2) a set of guidelines to develop mobile ICT with cognitive accessibility. This paper describes the ongoing work of STF 488, its approach, current results and the future work of the team.

Recent advances in low cost wearable computers opens up new possibilities for the development of innovative visual aids. A head-mounted display with cameras that capture views of the physical world, a wearable computer can process the image and present an augmented view to the user. Although, some research is reported into the development of such visual prosthetics the functionalities often appear ad-hoc. This study set out to identify what functionality visually impaired users need in various contexts to reduce barriers. Information was gathered via interviews of visually impaired individuals. The results show that recognizing faces and text is the most important functions while the idea of smart glasses where questioned.

The main objective of this work is to automate the conversion process of pedagogical images into information easily understandable by blind people and visually impaired people. This is performed by determining automatically the different areas of interest in the image, then identify each region by assigning it a texture which will be for example transformed in relief. The text present in the image is also detected, recognized and transformed in accessible text (in Braille text or vocal message). The solution that we offer by this work is to provide a tool that tries to find automatically the principal information conveyed by the image and then transmit it to blind people.

Visual information such as SmartArts are often used in presentations and lectures. SmartArts are visual information containing some text and graphical elements. They have to be described verbally to become accessible for visually impaired and blind people. But a manual image description is often not provided or misses information about the pictorial part of SmartArt diagrams. We present a PowerPoint Add-In to create image descriptions semiautomatically. Both a short description and a long description containing details are generated. The author can adjust the generation by modifying a template. In a user evaluation the quality of manually and semi-automatic transcribed images were tested.

Web-based, mobile sonification offers a highly flexible way to give blind users access to graphical information and to solve various everyday as well as job-related tasks. The combination of a touch screen, image processing, and sonification allows the user to hear the content of every image region that he or she indicates with his/her finger position on a tablet or mobile phone. In this paper, we build on and expand our previous work in this area and evaluate how six blind participants can perceive mathematical graphs, bar charts, and floor maps with our sonifications and tactile graphics.

We describe a general framework for generating tactile and multimodal graphics from various sources. The key module to generate the intermediate format for a specific graphic category is illustrated by example.

Post production audio description (AD) has become recognized as a standard accessibility requirement for blind and low vision (B/LV) audiences and their friends and family. Although it is standardized, it is not commonly used due to the intensive effort involved in its creation and the lack of browser-based tools available for its production. In this paper, we will describe a new technology called, LiveDescribe, developed to allow description to be produced within a web browser for online videos such as those on YouTube.

Tracking blockers protect from and inform about hidden trackers and services that collect data in the background while the user is surfing the web. However, existing tracking blockers provide information and feedback visually and thus are barely accessible for visually impaired and blind users. In this paper we present insights about privacy concerns of visually impaired Internet users. Moreover we present feedback strategies and guidelines for an accessible tracking blocker developed in a user centered design process. The underlying feedback principles and guidelines can be used for the design of Privacy Enhancing Technology in other domains, and therefore serve as reference for designers and developers.

As recent studies show, people with disabilities still face several problems when using the web, therefore, even with all the efforts already made, there are yet issues without a clear solution. In this context, this paper presents an empirical study on the identification of navigation barriers by users with cerebral palsy and how some dynamic components, widely used nowadays, can directly influence their online activities.

This paper presents a new framework for localised web accessibility guidelines for university websites in Saudi Arabia. The main purpose of this framework is to provide the basis for the development of localised guidelines. Applying these localised guidelines on Arabic websites would enhance their accessibility for Arab people with disabilities. The development process of the new framework is described in detail. This process involved three phases, determination, synthesis and specification phases. The proposed framework comprises six main components; web accessibility, genre-specific cultural markers, costs, user diversity, Internet infrastructure and technology variety.

Educational assessment represents a huge challenge for accessibility, and the use of highly visual assessment tasks that rely on idiosyncratic interactions that may be unfamiliar to test takers further increases that challenge. The authors describe a prototype innovative mathematics item and an initial evaluation of its usability for diverse audiences, including individuals with visual and other disabilities. The study illustrates the use of technical standards for developing accessible innovative assessment items and illustrates the challenges of meeting diverse access needs.

Despite advances in the legal framework to assure web accessibility people with disabilities still find barriers hindering websites access. The European Internet Inclusion Initiative (EIII) has delivered methods and tools to carry out large scale evaluations of websites. The tools have been used to carry out 180 million tests on 540, 000 web pages to check 1065 websites at a rate of about 7 sites per hour. This paper outlines an approach to reduce the number of web pages needed to compute accessibility scores. The suggested approach relies on machine learning to cluster the web pages according to the barriers detected and to select representative pages for the score calculation. Analysis of the experimental results has confirmed the validity of the accessibility test result as a new feature for clustering web pages, which is planned to be implemented in the EIII website checker tools.

The transitions across different health care settings, in particular home and hospital, may be critical regarding the continuity of patient’s medication. Some of the medication discrepancies occurring during these transitions can potentially be harmful to patient’s health and therefore lead to increased use of healthcare resources and increased costs. The goal of SEAMPAT is to define, implement and evaluate an ICT-based medication reconciliation (MedRec) process in which the patient is actively involved in providing information about his/her current medications. MedRec is the formal and collaborative process of obtaining and verifying a complete and accurate list of patient’s current medications.

While inexpensive mobile devices and services become the primary means of online communication the elderly are prevented from participating due to technical difficulties and common barriers. Among the older users communication and entertainment are considered key aspects to alleviate loneliness. Elderly people are at high risk of facing social isolation with rising age. This article proposes a distributed, multi-device platform called BRELOMATE to promote social participation and online communication. Firstly the system architecture and a prototypical gaming service with integrated video-conferencing are presented. Secondly the user centered design process and the results of a first user study are shown.

This paper presents the reports on a pilot study in Norway where electronic medication dispensers were tested by 16 elderly users, exploring the effects for both end users and the care service. There were large variations in the users’ individual perceptions of the dispenser. Persons with reduced eyesight or manual dexterity reported great personal benefits and increased feeling of independence and dignity. On the other hand, several patients stopped using the dispenser due to either cognitive challenges and/or feelings of insecurity. The home care service using electronic medication dispensers must take great care in finding the right users to increase probability of success, both for the user and the service.

This paper proposes a new methodological approach for a better understanding of the needs of elderly people the use of the technology in the use of technologies in an ambient. This methodology is based on the implementation of a multidimensional observation tool mixing ethnographic observation of actions and interviews with a multitechnological infrastructure in a Living Lab. Some preliminary results are presented with the participation of 14 seniors.

This study provides a first exploratory analysis, based on a survey of 103 seniors aged 65–95, to assess the needs/motives which are important to examine in further empirical research and in the development of mobile devices and apps for seniors. Results showed that seniors have intrinsic and extrinsic needs/motives that need to be taken into consideration when conceptualizing mobile attributes/apps to assist seniors. ‘Three Tiers of Priority’ specific to mobile attributes were uncovered through this research.

Bedside patient infotainment touch screens provide access to a range of information, communication and entertainment services. This paper explores pertinent design and implementation considerations when introducing such infotainment terminals in nursing homes. Given the high prevalence of dementia in nursing home populations, special importance is placed on the needs and requirements of persons with dementia. In the paper, findings from an evaluation of the introduction of an infotainment system in two nursing homes is presented, discussed and contrasted with literature on dementia-friendly design of ICT.

Support services with informal caregivers as primary target group can reduce the burden caused by the care work. But at the moment the offer in Austria is underdeveloped and underutilized due to problems on the side of the providers and on the side of the informal caregivers. After doing expert interviews, a questionnaire was created and distributed to providers in Austria. It focused on current offers of support services and their acceptance, marketing activities, future of the overall offer in Austria and ICT usage. This paper presents the results of the questionnaire and also compares it to former studies done in this area.

The technical development of IT-based products for aged people under the term Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) has been heavily researched over the recent years. However, implementation lags behind. Among others there is demand for assistance and guidance of the aged people in form of a Case Management system. In course of a qualitative study design recommendations have been developed which should find consideration when implementing the AAL-Case Management.

Companion robots designed for PWD need to be customised to meet individual needs if they are to be perceived as useful and acceptable. This paper presents a brief review of the literature on the usefulness of robots for people with dementia; it also includes an overview of the ethical considerations that inform robot development and a description of a qualitative study which describes how people with dementia and other key stakeholders helped to design and shape this robot. An overview of the unique aspect of the MARIO robot and the scientific impact of this work is also presented.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a state related to ageing, and sometimes evolves to dementia. As there is no pharmacological treatment for MCI, a non-pharmacological approach is very important. The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in care and assistance services for elderly people increases their chances of prolonging independence thanks to better cognitive efficiency. Robots are seen to have the potential to support the care and independence of elderly people. The project ENRICHME (funded by the EU H2020 Programme) focuses on developing and testing technologies for supporting elderly people with MCI in their living environment for a long time. This paper describes the results of the activities conducted during the first year of the ENRICHME project, in particular the definition of user needs and requirements and the resulting system architecture.

The distribution of wrist-worn wearable devices grows rapidly, also among aging people. Within such wearables, inertial sensors are incorporated and may be used, next to their intended purpose, for identifying the currently used walking aid of the senior. After detecting whether the user is moving or not moving, a machine learning approach can be used to identify the currently used walking aid using acceleration and angular rate features. To overcome the wearable attitude uncertainty, the computed features are based on the normalized measurements of the three sensor axes, and they overlap at approximately 0.25 s. The defined walking aids for this approach include standing, walking normal, use of a walking cane and the use of a walker or a wheelchair. A ten-fold cross validation with the labelled training data delivers recall values of 98 % for a window size of 2.56 s. When predicting the currently used walking aid in real time, blunders may occur in the classification. Such blunders can additionally be overcome by the modelling of the probability of the transition between the use of one walking aid to the use of another. The determination of the used walking aid in real time delivers 97 % correctly identified walking aids within defined test scenarios. The identification of the currently used walking aid is mainly used as input parameter for positioning or routing applications, e.g., planning a path which is walkable with the currently used walking aid.

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methods are used to support people who have communication problems. Attempts have been made to apply AAC to assist the communication of people with cognitive impairments, including people with dementia. Two systems, CIRCA and Talking Mats, took as their starting points different types of communication situation which are problematic with dementia. Both systems have proved to be of benefit to user populations, encouraging further exploration in the field. Such exploration is likely to be gradual and incremental, given the nature of the challenges involved, building on retained capabilities of persons with dementia. There are implications for approaches to system design and development, including the software engineering of new systems.

PDFs are everywhere on the web, and with the advent of the PDF Techniques for the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 2.0, the general public could be led to believe that PDF is an accessible technology. But is it an appropriate accessible solution for content? In a study conducted by Consumer Affairs Victoria, overwhelmingly people chose web pages to view their content, instead of PDFs. When given a choice, 99.6 % of users choose a web page instead of a PDF to view information.

This paper introduce is a simple viewer and editor of sound-embedded PDF that is suitable for elementary school students with print disabilities. These days, a lot of teaching materials are created in PDF. For student with print disabilities, the use of sound-embedded PDF was proposed. However, the production of documents in sound-embedded PDF was difficult for most teachers and students because complex tasks with expensive application software were necessary. Therefore, a simple viewer and editor of sound-embedded PDF was developed.

This paper describes a new algorithm for the automatic detection and tagging of paragraphs in PDF documents. This is an important feature of the PDF Accessibility Validation Engine (PAVE) [1] which is an open-source web application for the analysis and semi-automatic correction of accessibility issues in PDF documents. The tool is currently used by a large number of users, and their feedback is collected and evaluated. The evaluation so far revealed some major usability issues mainly due to the missing paragraph detection functionality. After an introduction in PDF accessibility this paper discusses the current usability issues with PAVE and describes the newly proposed algorithm to alleviate them. A first evaluation and conclusion of the results will be provided in the final paper.

The first iteration of the PDF and the User Experience Survey provides an insight into the user experience of people with disabilities who use adaptive technology on a variety of devices and platforms to access PDF or Portable Document Format content. The goal of this ongoing research is to provide progressive baselines of data which in turn support developers and researchers in designing and implementing tools necessary to ensure access to accessible PDF/UA conforming documents, PDF/UA conforming viewers/readers and PDF/UA conforming adaptive technology. The underlying premise is to support the advancement and implementation of PDF/UA or ISO 14289.

This paper presents a unified production system for various types of accessible textbooks. For students with print disabilities, it is important that various types of accessible textbooks should be available so that students can choose one as appropriate. The unified production system enables us to prepare production master data of several types of accessible textbooks at a time.

The RISE bimodal-bilingual eBooks project is a joint initiative of Gallaudet University and Swarthmore College in the United States aimed to promote shared reading activities between hearing adults and their deaf children, although the format may welcome users from a broader spectrum. It produces ebooks, typically using published picture books as a base, and adding sign language videos, where the countries and languages involved right now number a dozen, but the global interest is growing steadily. The project has developed a workflow that is easily implementable using commercial off-the-shelf software, or open source alternatives, with an aim of making the production of bimodal-bilingual ebooks both readily accessible and efficient.

We introduce an upgrade of the LaBraDoor (LaTeX to Braille Door) system, a tool that allows textbooks to be automatically converted from their TeX source into an accessible equivalent in Braille. The revamped version makes use of state-of-the-art technologies and techniques for automatic Braille document generation, including math and other non-linear information widely used in educational materials.

The Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) content is gradually gaining popularity among the visually impaired, according to “The Act on the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities” enforced in Japan since April 2016. However, compilation of DAISY-formatted e-books, generally undertaken by volunteers, is time-consuming, and forces users to wait a long time for the delivery of such books, which they might want to read as soon as possible. Therefore, we attempted to improve this situation by providing a text-to-speech (TTS)-based DAISY content creation tool to volunteers. To practically evaluate our concept, we ran a web application site from Fall 2013 to the end of 2015. The site provides a transliteration system that converts plain text to DAISY content, including formatted HTML and audio data, by using TTS technology. The results of the practical evaluation were demonstrated in this study, and show the effectiveness of our proposal method.

In this work we present the functional specifications, architecture and implementation of the HERMOPHILOS web-based system developed to auto-mate and accelerate the accessible eTextbooks’ production, workflow management, and delivery in an a higher education environment. We describe the redesign of the relative manual procedures and we show how HERMOPHILOS makes things easier and faster for the print-disabled students, as well as for the personnel involved. The web services of HERMOPHILOS include user sign up, user authentication, user rights management, students’ accessible textbooks re-quests, digital textbook requests to publishers, requests’ progress monitoring, original digital textbook copy submission, scanning, OCR, version and archive management, copyright protection, distribution, and digital content usage statistics. Implementation specifications included support for all browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices, accessible user interfaces (WCAG 2.0 AA), and advanced encryption and security policies. The HERMOPHILOS system sup-ports multiple formats for eTextbooks: plain text (.txt), rich text (.rtf), accessible markup (.xml, .xhtml, and .html), large print (.doc), audio books (.mp3), DAISY 2&3 (text only or full text - full audio), Braille (.brf or .brl), MS-Word (.docx), portable document format (.pdf) and LaTex (.tex). Paperwork was dramatically reduced, and the need for students’ visits to the accessibility office was eliminated. Τhe results show that, compared to the traditional procedure, the HERMOPHILOS workflow management system reduced the overall production and delivery time by 47 %.

Figures are an essential part of scientific literature, but students with severe print disabilities do not presently have good access to figures. Most figures are “made accessible” by a written or audio description. Tactile representations can make figures accessible, but tactile figures must have braille labels, but relatively few blind people read braille and only a small percentage of blind braille readers can read tactile graphics. Figures are potentially very accessible to a wide variety of students with print disabilities through a combination of tactile and audio description, but audio-tactile technology has been labor-intensive and often difficult to use. A new version of the ViewPlus IVEO audio/touch technology could be a major step in the evolution of audio/touch toward a future in which figures can be universally accessible to everybody. The audio/touch method and the improvements being introduced in the new IVEO version are discussed in this paper.

This paper presents a personal reflection on developing a ‘Digital Accessibility’ MOOC as part of the Erasmus+ MOOCAP project and comparing the process to developing a traditional course on the same topic. The few people who currently teach about accessibility on expensive face to face courses at a few universities are currently only reaching a very small number of people whereas many tens of thousands can learn through a MOOC.

The EU funded pilot project (funding scheme “Leonardo da Vinci”, fostering lifelong learning and promoting further vocational education) ECDL® PD (ECDL® for People with Disabilities) was carried out from 2001–2004. It aimed at adapting the widespread and renowned ECDL® certificate (European Computer Driving License) to the needs of people with disabilities. This adaptation of a mainstream standard certificate was meant to support people with disabilities and other people at a disadvantage (e.g. older people, people with weak social or educational background, or people from minorities or immigrant groups not ready for using their second/new mother tongue at a satisfying level) and to foster their chances at the labor market. What remained from this work? Is ECDL® the ultima ratio for including people at risk of exclusion or with fewer opportunities into the labor market and into society or is it a certificate amongst others without reaching its full potential?

Literature has shown that learning, including eLearning and distance education, plays an important role in promoting well-being among the elderly. Currently elderly participants constitute less than 10 % of MOOC participants and very limited research has been conducted on the accessibility of MOOCs for elderly users. This paper presents the findings from a case study focusing on the accessibility of a MOOC demo course for the elderly. Different accessibility issues were found from automated testing and user testing. Although the elderly participants expressed general positive attitude towards using MOOCs to learn new knowledge, it is important for MOOC providers to address the accessibility issues and make their courses accessible to elderly users.

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have not developed with an inherent capacity to attend to the needs of disabled students. In our research, we aim to understand the social, contextual and organisational issues behind these inadequacies. Through this, interventions and best practices can be developed to improve the situation.

Personas are widely applied in Human-computer interaction and beneficial to understand the target users of a product. We use personas in the MOOCAP project to impart knowledge on Digital Accessibility. This paper presents selected course material of the MOOC Digital Accessibility. The proposed educational concept uses personas repetitively to build foundations of knowledge on accessibility. Additionally, an evaluation of the course material is presented.

The importance of note-taking in face to face teaching and learning situations is well understood in terms of successful outcomes for the majority of students. Outcomes from interactions with online learning and the use of videos as a way of revising has been less well researched, in particular with disabled students. This paper aims to introduce the notion that not all disabled students who could use technology to support note taking necessarily find it effective although they prefer to listen and watch videos. A small survey provides an indication that students may not necessarily be making the best use of their technologies or have access to alternative ways of viewing online learning materials. Where there are options to view videos using lecture capture systems; time constraints and the quality of the videos prove to be further barriers, rather than providing a successful outcome. Despite the possibility of multi-modal/multichannel approaches there also remains very little research on the subject in particular when using more recent Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). There are, however, indications that with the increased use of transcriptions and graphical tools, these options could offer good note-taking strategies as part of a more inclusive approach for all students.

The paper investigates the current state of provision of learning technologies for autistic people and makes recommendations for the design of new technologies and the need for further research. The work is introduced by a discussion of autism from the perspective of the social model of disability. End-user involvement is obtained from interviews with autistic women and surveys of Polish teachers, therapists and psychologists working with autistic students, and teachers and parents on accessible and usable educational games.

The study goal was an investigation into the efficacy of tablets as teaching tools for students with learning difficulties attempting to study concepts in geometry. The study includes three students studying in a fifth grade regular class, whose achievements in geometry fell below class average. The quantitative analysis was based on Single Subject Design that was based on Multiple Baseline Design. Findings indicates a rise in achievements in each student as they began using tablets. Analyzing of multiple baseline data reveals a great degree of baseline variation without tablets, and more moderate and stable variation during intervention. The use of tablets allowed the students accessibility to challenging material, and to initiate each class differently.

This paper concerns the use of biometric technology as a means to improve delivery of eLearning material to learners with special needs. We discuss the current state of research and the potential offered by recent advances in and commercialisation of biometric technologies. We then present an ongoing study that examines the application of some of these technologies in learner-assessment of special needs students.

Computer science is taught as a regular subject in the school systems of many countries. Most tools used to teach main topics of computer science curricula, such as data structures and algorithms, are visually oriented. Our work aims to assist visually impaired students to understand fundamental data structures and algorithms through 3D printed haptic models. We developed a simple but general method that can be used by the teacher to introduce data structures and algorithmic thinking to both visual impaired and sighted students in inclusive classes. We evaluated our models for teaching one-dimensional arrays to both visual impaired and sighted students.

While game accessibility is well researched, many game developers lack awareness of issues and solutions and there is no framework to support educators in teaching about game accessibility. This study is based on an international survey to accessibility researchers, as well as people in the game industry and related communities. The quantitative data shows the most weighted topics in a curriculum, and the qualitative data provides detailed quotes to explain how a curriculum framework could be designed. Results also show that there is a need to change attitudes to game accessibility, but also to focus on practice, basic concepts and needs of disabled in an introductory course, while an advanced course could focus more on theory and solutions which are harder to implement. Future research is to follow-up this study to further validate our conclusions.

Devices featuring touchscreen interfaces are considered to be intuitive and there is growing evidence that people with dementia are able to use them. The challenge is in identifying suitable and accessible activities on these devices. This research is attempting to develop a shareable framework that can be used to identify available touchscreen apps suitable for people living with dementia. The framework is separated in to two stages: (1) app identification and (2) app testing. Five touchscreen gaming apps have been identified using the framework so far, four of which have been tested by people living with dementia. Following each applied use, the framework has been adapted in response to the observed outcomes. The applied use of the app selection framework to date indicates that it has the potential to be a reliable and valid method of identifying accessible apps for people living with dementia.

An experience that took place in ASPACE (Association of People with Cerebral Palsy in Seville) showed that the intervention with games based on tangible devices like small robots is a good alternative in the case of people with cerebral palsy (CP). The aim is to develop skills in three facets: cognitive, motor and social. From three to six sessions with seven subjects allowed obtaining information on the evolution of them and their involvement in the activity.

The aim of the study was the comparison of existing approaches of user interfaces for visually impaired people playing a mobile game. The mobile gamebook was taken into account as an example of the game. Seven different interfaces accessible for visually impaired people were studied analyzing the following aspects: interface reaction time, commands correctness, screen size influence, complexity of implementation, and number of available options. It was concluded, that perfectly accessible interface of a mobile game should consist of the lowest number of options as possible. When simple interfaces with limited number of options are designed, then swipes, multi-touch and sensors, due to the short reaction time and a high level of correctness of operations, are worth taking into account. The paper highlights, that the use of MVP design pattern allows developers to create mobile games with different methods of interaction, which can be changed in a runtime.

Working Memory (WM) is a fundamental system to allow the execution of many cognitive functions (learning, reasoning, reading, language comprehension, calculation, etc.) involved in daily activities. WM declines with aging but can be improved with training programs, including computer-based ones. This paper presents a free and open source web platform called VIRTRAEL that consists of activities to train several cognitive skills, including WM. One of its activities, Objects Bag, is described as well as tests performed to show its effectiveness.

Although many computer games have recently become diversified, plenty of effort and ingenuity is needed to produce games that persons with a total visual impairment can enjoy. Though some games for visually impaired persons have been developed, games that use only auditory information present challenges for sighted persons. Moreover, unfortunately, it is still difficult for visually impaired persons to play the same game with sighted persons and for sighted and visually impaired persons to share a common subject. To solve this problem, we developed a barrier-free game that both sighted and visually impaired persons can play using their dominant senses including visual, auditory and tactile senses. Moreover, we developed a map editor for a game developer with blindness and provided an integrated game development environment for them. In this paper, we describe the development and reflections of the barrier-free game and the map editor.

The main goal of our project was to design and implement a serious-game application, which helps the older generation, stroke patients to complete the rehabilitation process or practise daily movements playfully. The patients, therapists, trainers, and family members can edit the levels in the game. The user can control the game via Microsoft Kinect sensor, which is one of the most popular HCI device.

We introduce a wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring device designed for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The purpose of this study is to verify the quality of the ECG signals measured by the developed device during the therapeutic activity of children with ASD for the quantitative measurement of mental stress. The device is implemented in a clothe, and the ECG signals are captured at the wrists. ECG measurements of three children with ASD were successfully performed during therapy, and R-R intervals with a high reliability were obtained over 90 % of the duration of tasks that involve little movement.

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study on elicitation and online detection of emotional states in users suffering from cerebral palsy (CP). Two questions stood in the focus of the study. Firstly, is an elicitation approach based on the international affective digitized sound system (IADS-2) database feasible for this user group? Secondly, is it possible to distinguish out of the measurements of the EDA sensor (Electro Dermal Activity) positive and negative emotional states? The results revealed high correlation between the findings in the study and the published IADS-2 standard‎ [1]‎. These results has shown as well that it is possible to distinguish between positive and negative emotional states based on the measured EDA signals.

This work explores the use of speech enabled complex graphs that are designed to enable non-technical users to edit and appraise visually complex semantic structures. The standard usability evaluation that was performed previously employed young, computer-literate participants that were familiar with such concepts and tools. We report on the findings of how technically-savvy and technically challenged users experience the different modalities, make choices and identify each modality advantages and shortcomings as well as the ability of each user group to optimally exploit modality combination paths.