Computers Helping People with Special Needs

Sound table tennis (also known as vision impaired table tennis, and abbreviated as STT) is one of the most internationally popular sports for visually impaired people. Since the players of STT cannot rely on visual information, they must grasp the game situation using their auditory sense. However, it is difficult, especially for STT beginners, to perceive the state of the game, including the positions of the opponents, and the direction and distance of the ball. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to develop an application that enables STT players, especially beginners, to train their acoustic sense to instantaneously recognize the direction and distance of the ball at the service phase hit by opponents without going to the gym. We implemented the application named AcouSTTic (Acoustic + STT), and then evaluated its training effectiveness.

Real-time camera image analysis informs the walking person about the way in front by sonification. For visually impaired people, this opens a new way to experience their surroundings and move more safely outdoors. We extended an image analysis workflow from autonomous robots to human interaction, adaption to alternating way appearance, and various sonification options. The solution is available on off-the-shelf smartphones.

In this paper, we report the unimodal interface device coupling with intensities in luminance and temperature. It enables the user to recognize two or three types of information through the finger’s angle motion and vibration independently and simultaneously. We describe the developed device, as well as its experimental results.

A project to develop a blind football play-by-play system was started. The target of the system is visually impaired spectator. To conduct a basic study, we made an experimental system that detects a position of a player using a Quasi-Zenith Satellites System (QZSS) and shows the position via refreshable tactile display. The QZSS allows users to acquire more precise position information than only with GPS around Japan. The study showed that a certain possibility to acquire an arbitrary position data of the player in the field and display it to the tactile display.

This paper describes a device conceived to guide blind people. In this device, we use both localization informations provided by a precise and low latency real-time positioning system and head orientation data measured with an Inertial Measurement Unit, coupled with a real-time binaural engine. In this paper we made a special focus on the localization techniques that we have studied. First experiments show that the approach is viable and the system can be used in practice ...

In the Caribbean, the cost of technological aids to assist visually impaired persons with navigation is extravagant. Moreover, a recent effort by a student at the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill Campus) to develop a low-cost SmartCane solution for this vulnerable group has been met with limited success. The SmartCane system which uses an ultra-sonic device mounted on a traditional white cane communicates the proximity of objects to the user via vibrations on a Bluetooth connected mobile device. However, the lack of a user-friendly interface, for the mobile application hinders the overall user experience. This research is aimed at developing a new mobile application that will improve the user experience. Application requirements will be gathered through the administration of surveys to visually impaired members of the Barbados Association for the Deaf and Blind. The mobile application is expected to provide visually impaired individuals with assistance in navigating to their desired destinations. Moreover when the mobile device is paired with the SmartCane system users will also have the benefit of obstacle avoidance. This student-led effort to integrate this vulnerable group into society is poised to move beyond the classroom and bring greater awareness of the need for low-cost assistive technological solutions in the Caribbean region.

People with central vision loss may become unable to see facial expressions during face-to-face conversations. Nuances in interpersonal communication conveyed by those expressions can be captured by computer vision systems and conveyed via an alternative input to the user. We present a low-cost system using commodity hardware that serves as a communication aid for people with central vision loss. Our system uses a smartphone in a head-mounted-display to capture images of a conversation partner’s face, analyze the face expressions, and display a detected emotion in the corner of the display where the user retains vision senses. In contrast to purpose-built devices that are expensive, this system could be made available to a wider group of potential users, including those in developing countries.

This study aims to develop a beacon activated indoor guidance system for visual impaired persons. Based on the “Mobile Accessibility Guidelines” developed by British Broadcasting Corporation, our system provides a vocal feedback mechanism with easy touchscreen gesture design operated with mobile devices which can help instruct the visual impaired people to navigate the indoor spaces area such as department store and office. Our system uses NoSQL database, Firebase, as the backend database which uses JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) as the data exchange and storage format. The design model implemented in the system is MVC (Model-View-Control) which provides the system more maintainable and extendable. In order to provide flexible indoor space configuration in the system, we design a text-based space configuration scheme which can support the users to define a new indoor space very easily.

Over the past years, convolutional neural networks (CNN) have not only demonstrated impressive capabilities in computer vision but also created new possibilities of providing navigational assistance for people with visually impairment. In addition to obstacle avoidance and mobile localization, it is helpful for visually impaired people to perceive kinetic information of the surrounding. Road barrier, as a specific obstacle as well as a sign of entrance or exit, is an underlying hazard ubiquitously in daily environments. To address the road barrier recognition, this paper proposes a novel convolutional neural network named KrNet, which is able to execute scene classification on mobile devices in real time. The architecture of KrNet not only features depthwise separable convolution and channel shuffle operation to reduce computational cost and latency, but also takes advantage of Inception modules to maintain accuracy. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate qualified performance for the meaningful and useful applications of navigational assistance within residential and working area.

Vibro-tactile support for navigation tasks is helpful, not only for visually impaired people. However many different prototypes exist which are not available for experimental usage or commercial ones are expensive. We developed a low-cost prototype of a wristlet and anklet that can easily be rebuild. We evaluated them in a two step procedure with 11 and 10 participants. Both prototypes are easy to use and comfortable to wear. However, the wristlet had a high error rate so that it was not used in the second test. Comparisons between the anklet and voice guidance during navigation in the second test showed the potential of vibration for navigation tasks, but implied a refinement of the design, which will be tested in further studies.

Interpreting images to compute properties of the 3D world is a significant matter of computer vision. Therefore computer vision applications can help people requiring assistance. This paper presents a novel stereo-vision-based perception and navigation approach to assist visually impaired people. Frontal view images of stores in a shopping mall are first searched for logo recognition. Distances to the found logos (store signboards) are estimated by stereo matching. Both logo recognition and stereo matching are based on local image features (keypoint descriptors) calculated via Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) algorithm. Final refined distances are calculated via statistical filtering and averaging of the individual keypoint distances found by matched keypoint pairs. Experimental results on our self generated stereo dataset of 28 storefront images from various distances and viewpoints demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.

Utilizing RGB-Depth images acquired by a wearable system, we propose an integrated assistive navigation for visually impaired people at urban intersection, which provides with crosswalk position (where to cross roads), crossing light signal (when to cross roads) and pedestrian state (whether safe to cross roads). Verified by the experiment results on datasets and in field, the proposed approach detects multiple targets at urban intersections robustly and provides visually impaired people with effective assistance.

Indoor wayfinding is a major challenge for people with visual impairments, who are often unable to see visual cues such as informational signs, landmarks and structural features that people with normal vision rely on for wayfinding. We describe a novel indoor localization approach to facilitate wayfinding that uses a smartphone to combine computer vision and a dead reckoning technique known as visual-inertial odometry (VIO). The approach uses sign recognition to estimate the user’s location on the map whenever a known sign is recognized, and VIO to track the user’s movements when no sign is visible. The advantages of our approach are (a) that it runs on a standard smartphone and requires no new physical infrastructure, just a digital 2D map of the indoor environment that includes the locations of signs in it; and (b) it allows the user to walk freely without having to actively search for signs with the smartphone (which is challenging for people with severe visual impairments). We report a formative study with four blind users demonstrating the feasibility of the approach and suggesting areas for future improvement.

In daily life, a guide dog as a companion assists blind and visually impaired people (BVIP) to perform independent and safe journey. However, due to several reasons (e.g., cost and long-term training) only a few BVIP would own their guide dogs. To let much more BVIP would have accessible guidance services in unfamiliar public or private areas, we plan to develop an interactive guide dog robot prototype. In this paper, we present one of the most important components of a guidance robot for BVIP, an interactive haptic rein which consists of force-sensing sensors to control and balance the walking speed between BVIP and robots in a natural way, and vibrated actuators under fingers to acquire haptic information, e.g., turning left/right. The results of preliminary user studies indicated that the proposed haptic rein allow BVIP to control and communicate with a guidance robot via a natural haptic interaction.

In this paper, we describe a recently begun project aimed at teaching of echolocation using a mobile game. The presented research concerns initial echolocation tests with real world obstacles and similar tests performed using binaural recordings. Tests that included detection and recognition of large obstacles in various environments (padded room, non-padded room, outdoors) were performed by three groups 10 persons each: blind children, blind adults and sighted adults. A mixed group of volunteers also tested binaural recordings of the same environments using a mobile application for Android and iOS devices. The presented preliminary research shows a large variance in echolocation ability of the participants. Less than 20% of the 30 volunteers could reliably (with >80% certainty) localize 1 m and 2 m wide walls at distances 1 to 3 m, while about as many showed no echolocation skills and answered at a random level. On average sighted adults performed better in echolocation tests than blind children, but worse than blind adults. Tests in outdoor environments showed much better results than indoors and a padded room was marginally better for echolocation than the non-padded room. Performance with recordings was generally worse than in analogous real tests, but the same trends could be clearly observed, e.g. a proportional drop-off of correctness with distance. The tests with recordings also demonstrated that a repeatable pre-recorded or synthesized clicker originating from a loudspeaker was a better solution than recordings with live clicker sounds.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a novel functional design for an indoor and outdoor mobility assistive device for the visually impaired, based on the theoretical frameworks of mobility and spatial cognition. The originality of the proposed approach comes from the integration of two main aspects of navigation, locomotion and wayfinding. The cognitive theories which underpin the design of the proposed sensory substitution device, called TactiBelt, are identified and discussed in the framework of spatial knowledge acquisition.The paper is organized as follows: Sect. 1 gives a brief overview of the sensory substitution framework, while Sects. 2 and 3 introduce the importance of navigation and spatial cognition models for the design of mobility aids. Section 4 details the functional design of the Tactibelt.

For comprehensively participating in society, independent and safe mobility is an important skill for many daily activities. Spatial cognition is one of the most important human capabilities and addresses the acquisition, processing and utilization of knowledge about the spatial layout of environments. Humans predominantly use the visual sense for this and for blind and low vision people, the lack of spatial perception reduces their quality of life and their ability of independent living. In particular the spatial navigation in unknown environments imposes challenges, since there is no possibility to train navigation tasks in advance. Today, blind and visually impaired people still rely on traditional navigation aids such as a cane for micro-navigation, which - however - does not help for developing orientation at larger scale or for planning of routes. To overcome this problem, this paper introduces the concept of a virtual environment that allows experiencing unknown locations by real walking while still staying in a sage controlled environment. Since this virtual environment can be controlled in its complexity, it can be adjusted from an abstract training scenario to a real-life situation such as train stations or airports.

Currently existing navigation and guidance systems do not properly address special guidance aides, such as the widely used white cane. Therefore, we propose a novel shoreline location system that detects and tracks possible shorelines from a user’s perspective in an urban scenario. Our approach uses three dimensional scene information acquired from a stereo camera and can potentially inform a user of available shorelines as well as obstacles that are blocking an otherwise clear shoreline path, and thus help in shorelining. We evaluate two different algorithmic approaches on two different datasets, showing promising results. We aim to improve a user’s scene understanding by providing relevant scene information and to help in the creation of a mental map of nearby guidance tasks. This can be especially helpful in reaching the next available shoreline in yet unknown locations, e.g., at an intersection or a drive-way. Also, knowledge of available shorelines can be integrated into routing and guidance systems and vice versa.

Mouth sticks were invented to increase the independence of people with reduced or no hand/arm functionality. To enhance the usability and acceptance of these assistive devices, a process to create fully personalized mouth sticks has been developed. In order to enable the users to use the mouth stick for diverse applications like signing, drawing, using smart phones, tablets and computers, or even doing handcraft, the tips are chosen accordingly. The users can design their own mouth stick in an online web tool, then the fully personalized geometry of the mouth piece is 3D-printed with medical grade polymer, and the stick and tip are customized. As the use of regular computer accessories can be challenging for mouth stick users, this paper also elaborates on the example of a computer mouse, how these can be adapted to be more accessible for mouth stick users and how 3D-printers can help to quickly create, adapt and distribute assistive technology. Several mouse case designs for mouth stick users were developed, 3D-printed and tested using a participatory design approach and comparing it to a morphological analysis approach.

This study examines embossed dots graphics produced with a 3D printer for the purpose of providing practical information to visually impaired people. Using 3D printing to produce tactile graphics has a benefit to make use of our cumulative assets in tactile graphics production: techniques and production tools. The author designed this study to specifically take up the following challenge: develop a system that would convert data created using embossed dots graphics drawing software for a braille embosser into data that could be used with 3D CAD software. The conversion would allow for completely customization of the size and shape of every dot, freeing us from the limitations in dot type associated with the braille embosser. Results are confirmed via physical measurements and tactile observation assessments.

The article demonstrates by the example of persons with complex needs how to open up 3D-printing and peer production to everybody. It describes the requirements for accessibility and a competence-based scalable approach that empowers persons with complex needs to produce prototypes of products – such as assistive tools. In addition to discussing the systematics of the fields of action, the focus of the presentation will be the developed accessibility checklist and the tested products. Furthermore, first findings and products, such as a methodology for co-constructing products in a design thinking process and up taking results from social innovation, are described. General principles of accessibility for the design of maker spaces are presented, to sensitize the maker scene for this issue. These general principles are complemented by applicable standards, guidelines to be followed and supporting funding.

People with disabilities express specific needs that are not addressable by a mass production approach. We see these people building or hacking custom solutions (e.g., joysticks, handles) for their needs, directly by themselves or with the help of a caregiver. We argue that digital fabrication and modern approaches to rapid prototyping can represent a valid alternative to mass production in assisting these people. In this work we present for the first time Hackability. Hackability is a methodology designed 3 years ago in Turin, Italy, to envisage the cross-contamination of skills among makers, designers, and people with disabilities. This methodology encourages the people with disabilities to express their needs and to actively collaborate in the whole process of design and fabrication of custom solutions. The final aim of Hackability is to produce benefits that are durable in time, as well as outputs that are scalable and economically fruitful. This paper presents the methodology as well as success stories and study cases and encourages researchers from all around Europe to replicate it in their local communities.

In order to extend the usability of BPLOT, a new version BPLOT4 was developed. BPLOT is the first tactile graphics production system for the blind that enables the blind to produce tactile graphics by themselves. BPLOT4 has obtained the following four new features: (1) The usage of variables and mathematical formulas is supported for the description of plotter control commands. (2) The production of ink print graphics is possible at the same time as that of tactile graphics. (3) A new GUI (Graphical User Interface) is developed for sighted users. (4) Everest-D V5 (Index Braille) is added to the list of supported Braille printers.

Charts, for example bar or line charts, represent data visually. They make use of domain specific skills of the visual sense like fast pattern recognition. Tactile charts enable blind and visually impaired people to access charts by the sense of touch. Their design differ from visual chart design. It is unclear how effective design of tactile charts looks like for different chart types. That is why we conducted a remote user study with 45 blind and visually impaired people to investigate several design criteria for tactile charts. Therefore, we have mailed tactile charts to participants who evaluated the charts on the basis of an online survey. In this paper, we analyze four comparison tasks with two bar charts, line charts, scatter plots, and pie charts, that differ in one specific design criteria - in particular, inner and outer helplines in bar charts, the design of grid lines in line charts, the use of grid lines in scatter plots, and the usage of textures in pie charts. We compare these charts regarding the computed error rate, the number of correct answers as well as a rating given by participants.

What makes tactile images well understandable and easy to read? What do blind readers need? This should be the starting question for any project developing technology that may help making tactile images common and easily available. This paper shares lessons learnt in a couple of succeeding projects. In the latest project, that is continued this year, thematic tactile volumes are being developed, that explain to blind people subjects that are otherwise very inaccessible for them. The subjects range from trees, letters, mathematical notation to traffic signs and icons. They even contain the two first volumes of a method that is being developed for reading 3D-images; the first volume comes with 3D-printed objects. They were tested with 10 readers who unanimously stated they would have liked to learn this at school. Dedicon had no opportunity for scientific research; this is a practical report, sharing important empirical information for designers of tactile images and developers of software or hardware concerning tablets giving haptic feedback.

Tactile maps and diagrams are widely used as accessible graphical media for people with visual impairments, in particular in the context of education. They can be made interactive by augmenting them with audio feedback. It is however complicated to create audio-tactile graphics that have rich and realistic tactile textures. To overcome these limitations, we propose a new augmented reality approach allowing novices to easily and quickly augment real objects with audio feedback. In our user study, six teachers created their own audio-augmentation of objects, such as a botanical atlas, within 30 min or less. Teachers found the tool easy to use and were confident about re-using it. The resulting augmented objects allow two modes: exploration mode provides feedback on demand about an element, while quiz mode provides questions and answers. We evaluated the resulting audio-tactile material with five visually impaired children. Participants found the resulting interactive graphics exciting to use independently of their mental imagery skills.

It is strenuous to make the visually impaired recognize figures and shapes. It is because there is a lack of understanding about how the visually impaired perceive tactile information. The aim of this research is to elucidate the process by which the visually impaired understand graphics. We video-record touch sensing process. First, the position of the fingertip is detected, and the trajectory of the finger is recorded. Later, using the video-record the locus of the finger is quantified and analyzed. We propose a quantification method for touch sensing. How many times the finger touched and on which part of the figure, finger movement direction, and speed, and the distance between the left and right fingers. The final goal of this research is to visualize cognitive process of figures and shapes by the visually impaired. The result could be used to translate figures, and shapes into languages. This will contribute to information acquisition by the visually impaired.

In this paper we highlight the practical experience gained during the first design iteration of a tactile relief for the Meissen table fountain exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Based on a 3D scan, we designed a 2.5D relief that is usable for our gesture-based interactive audio guide. We present a mixed-perspective view projection technique that combines the advantages of a top-down view and a frontal view, and developed a detail-preserving depth-compression technique to flatten less important parts. Finally, we present the results of a preliminary evaluation with 14 members of our participative research group, and give an outlook for improvements to be targeted in our ongoing research.

Many people face accessibility barriers when interacting with robots, mainly people who do not usually interact with new technologies, elderly people and users with disabilities. Current laws, standards and guidelines protect the right of the users interacting with computers, however, they are not specific for human-robot interaction and they have not considered the special characteristics of robots. This paper is focused on the accessibility requirements of tactile displays integrated into service robots. An extensive study and comparison of the main accessibility guidelines, standards and recommendations is conducted. Moreover, a first draft of guideline for tactile displays in HRI is proposed.

With the development of this plotter, a cost-effective and easy assembly was created to allow a better accessibility to well-recognizable braille text and tactile graphics on standard DIN-A4 paper for blind and visually impaired users. In comparison to currently employed systems, the developed device consists of a commercially available X/Y-plotter, which enables a movement in two orthogonal directions at once. Thus, not only the embossing of single dots, but also of continuous lines on a flat surface is possible. The plotter was extended by a solenoid that can change the force on a convertible embossing pen in Z-direction. Further parts were constructed and added to enable material feeding, material removal and paper fixation while printing. In a survey with six blind and visually impaired people, the results of the plotter were tested for good readability and recognition and compared to a conventional needle-based-system. Most of the participants would use the results produced by the plotter at hand in their daily life.

We here propose a three-dimensional shape presentation system using linear actuators which can control the displacement of a rod to a precision of 0.1 mm. We assume that this system will be used as a device to present topographical/shape information to people with visual impairments. For this study, we produced a prototype system equipped with precision linear actuators, and conducted experiments to evaluate the capabilities of the system.

Many artworks such as paintings or sculptures are accessible mainly through vision; visually impaired people therefore cannot benefit from the beauty, emotion or information inspired by these objects. Some trials at tactile presentation of artworks exist in research laboratories and some museums. In research laboratories such approaches are related to several synergetic components such as through the design of new multi-touch stimulation devices, the models of percepts’ emergence from perceptions (stimulation), object simplification with “conservation of meaning”, multimodal data fusion, etc. Museums are not only interested in multimodal (audio-tactile) presentations of artworks, but also in the physical accessibility of exhibition halls and self-guidance through collections. Specific wearable technologies and specific adaptable guides are necessary.

A new graphical Braille display is presented. Its use, social value and advantages are discussed. In particular is developed an approach allowing objects of cultural and historical heritage to be presented in an intuitive and accessible way to low-sighted or blind people.

An increasing number of virtual museums (VMs) are used as educational materials because the VM can provide experiencing and learning virtual hands-on exhibitions without being limited in a place and a time for the users. However, most of the VM does not always accessible for people with low vision because of the limited functions including elusive annotations, passive zooming control, and incompatibility of various accessibility functions. In this paper, our objective is to demonstrate the issues and the solutions of VMs for these people. We first developed a prototype of VMs for low vision and then experimentally evaluated the VMs to find the requirements that people with low vision can easily control and have experience learning in VMs. The result shows that those who have immersive tendency would prefer the VM with an HMD.

The access to artworks by visually impaired people requires a simplified tactile representation of paintings. This paper presents the difficulties of direct transcription of artworks and the test results of simplification of the paintings done by Australian Aborigines which don’t have purely visual elements such as shadows or perspective. The implemented methodology is bottom-up: it starts with tactile representation of basic elements relevant to the understanding of the whole painting, then their association into more complex concepts. The context of associations is explained through audio-description. The results of the tests with visually impaired persons are analyzed and explained.

This paper presents a new haptic surface tablet that can provide force feedback to the user. Force feedback means that the device can react to the user’s movements and apply a force against or in-line with these movements, according to the tactile properties of a displayed image. The device consists of a frame attached to a tactile tablet that generates a force feedback to user’s finger when exploring the surface, providing haptic informations about the displayed image. The experimental results suggest the relevance of this tablet as an assistive device for visually impaired people in perceiving and understanding the content of a displayed image. Several potential applications are briefly presented.

A new representation of content for haptic exploration of two-dimensional pictorial art masterpieces is presented. To realize a “tactile image”, pictures must be simplified and converted to a bas-relief with distinct and logically homogeneous areas, so that each segment can convey the original content in an intelligible way. Pictures must be digitized, modified, adapted and reconstructed as 3D models that are finally processed by a 3D printer to get an object analyzable through fingertips. We assess the quality and efficiency of the proposed solution through a cooperation with the Italian Union of Blind and Visually Impaired People. The resulting representations were implemented in two different events, gathering visitors’ comments. Remarks obtained during the exhibition in Pavia in 2015 led to a version of a tactile image that is now shown in Milan, at the Pinacoteca di Brera, beside the original masterpiece. The collected comments confirm that the approach is appreciated.

Riding public transit can be confusing for everyone, especially in an unfamiliar environment. One needs to figure out which transportation lines to take to reach a destination, when and where to catch a bus or a train, when to exit, and how to negotiate transfers. For those with sensorial or cognitive disabilities, these problems become even more daunting. Several technological approaches have been proposed to facilitate use of public transit for everyone. For any assistive technology to be successful, though, it is imperative that it is developed from the ground up with a clear understanding of the intended users’ needs and requirements, and possibly with a direct participation of these users throughout the project lifecycle. In this study, we conduct a focus group with blind participants, designed to highlight the main issues, problems, and limitations with the current transit system in our local area as well as the perception of the participants our proposed RouteMe2 technology [1]. We found two core categories of issues faced by blind travelers: (1) spatial/location awareness, and (2) temporal/time awareness. Configurability and accessibility were the most desired features requested for a new transit information app.

In this paper, we present a specially designed indoor navigation and audiovisual aiding system for blind or visually impaired people within public transport. The developed system relies on a positioning algorithm, which is based on inertial and radio signal data. With an additional map-matching process, the position solution is restricted to a routing graph, which is designed on the basis of a tactile paving network. In addition, we developed an audiovisual operator help service. With this webRTC based technology, the help seeking user can make an audiovisual call to an acquaintance or professional operator.

The “Mappa Mundi d’Albi” is an eighth-century map, registered in the Unesco‘s World heritage list in 2015. Difficult to understand even visually, it requires explanation and contextualization. In accordance with the legislation regarding the accessibility of cultural works, and to allow its understanding, we have implemented various devices, via digital technology, to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Different criteria of accessibility and perception of sensory modalities have been studied. After an analysis of the already existing accessibility design we have designed and evaluated different prototypes of enhanced digital and tangible maps. These prototypes have been put in place through different partnerships and based on a goal of reproducibility at low cost. The other objective was, taking into account the “diy” culture of fablabs, the work in collaboration for teachers specialized in accessibility or not and non-computer scientists.

Visual impairment limits people mainly in their travel related activities. Available navigation systems and aids for people with visual impairment solely focus either on indoor or outdoor environment and thus do not take into account their traveling habits – intermodal transportation. Verified guidelines for creating navigation instructions while transiting between different environments are needed. We present a set of navigation instructions designed for sidewalk-based navigation systems intended for transitions between indoor and outdoor environments and the usage of public transport. In two experiments with people with visual impairment, we evaluated our method on low-fidelity prototypes. We describe how we form the navigation instructions from sentence templates and how we envision the utilization of Bluetooth beacons.

Automatic route finding is an indispensable service in today’s life. As so far, route finding is most used for car navigation, available map data is largely missing information specific to the needs of pedestrians. This is much worse for mobility impaired pedestrians, that need to find safer routes avoiding dangerous crossings. This paper introduces a robust, incremental, and transparent extension of the OpenStreetMap way network to enable the analysis for safe route finding, and its application to safer route finding for pedestrians with visual disabilities.

After paying tribute to the ground-breaking invention of the tactile alphabet by Louis Braille, the paper describes the technological development of so-called refreshable Braille-Displays in significant steps from the late 1970s up till now. Despite quite many R&D efforts over these 40 years, all Braille-Displays presently available on the market in principle follow the same construction scheme as disclosed by Tetzlaff in 1981: Piezo-electric benders which move small pins up- and down [1]. In order to overcome several drawbacks of the classical solutions, we propose and investigate a radically new approach, where different combinations of rigid tactile points are placed on the surfaces of rotating cuboids which are arranged inside of a rotating cylinder. The lower half of the cylinder resembles the reading area for the finger, whereas a group of a few actuators by rotating said cuboids produces new text-content in the upper half. This can result not only in a complete new way of mobile and reasonably priced Braille reading equipment but also in a revival of Braille worldwide.

This paper presents a new concept the Braille typing by simple finger movements and swipe gesture in a 3D space. Braille codes are typed row by row. The content of the row is indicated by one or two fingers. At the end, a single swipe gesture must be performed to confirm a character. The best obtained results was 2.12 WPM. Although the value is low, the method has a significant advantage: it can be used for blind people with a paresis of one hand.

The objective of this work is to develop an interaction method that uses the touch screen of smartphones and embedded vibration mechanisms. During the study, three methods of communication with deaf-blind were analyzed: Morse code, Braille code for one device, parallel Braille code for two devices. The new concept is the third one. The main device send one column of the Braille code to the second device, then both vibrate own columns of the current character. Analysis of methods was carried out by comparing the reading time and correctness of character recognition for different time units of vibration signals. Considering the fact that the efficiency and the correctness of the characters recognition of the parallel Braille are similar to Morse, this approach seems to be quite an interesting alternative for deaf-blind users.

Screen magnifiers are one of the core tools to assist people with visual impairments in accessing digital content. We introduce an approach to minimize interaction requirements by magnifying at the fixation point/area which is identified using eye tracking. Screen magnifiers mostly use the cursor to define the magnification area and ask for configuring when and how to magnify. This paper presents a modular design of a gaze based magnification tool reducing interaction tasks and thereby also supporting a good overview of the content and thereby showing potential to improve usability. Modularization supports an easy integration of filtering and personalization techniques to support adjustment of gaze based magnification to unusual eye-movements as e.g. nystagmus.

The keystroke-level model (KLM) is a predictive model used to evaluate motor behaviour in skilled error-free user interaction involving conventional techniques, i.e. mouse and keyboard. A blind fingerstroke-level model (blind FLM) was recently introduced as an extension of KLM to assess visually impaired interaction on smartphones. The model comprises six operators that are used to calculate the time required for a visually impaired expert user to accomplish a task on a smartphone. In this paper, we present two blind FLM tools: calculator and editor. These tools enable designers to create behavioural models of user tasks from which reliable estimates of skilled user task times can be computed. Each tool was used to model a sample task on YouTube to assess its performance against previously recorded values. Both tools accurately predicted user performance with an average error of 1.27%.

This paper describes a set of new methods of Braille character recognition with the use of mobile devices such as smartphones. In the frame of the studies, a set of four varying solutions was proposed, further called modes. They are: a simple mode, an acute angle mode, a minimum distance mode, and a scaled mode. Using them, the solutions are designed and implemented for the Android OS platform. The solutions were evaluated using a theoretical model called CLC (curve-line-corner). It was designed to deter-mine the speed of pen stroke gesture, although it is proven that there is no significant difference between pen and finger gestures, thus the results of the model appear to be valid. The model de-composes each stroke into simpler elements, allowing to calculate their production time using proper formulae. Once this is done the performance of the proposed solutions is compared with the existing ones. The results are satisfactory, as the average words per minute count was approximately 25. It is quite high result, although still on par with some of similar solutions.

We propose a new interaction model for zooming in and out the screen content of smartphones and tablets for visually impaired people. It consists in gestures that are captured by the front-facing camera to control the zooming factor and to scroll in the zoomed-in image. A first prototype involving video processing has been developed. As it avoids using a hand to touch the screen, this interaction model is interesting for other mobile applications. Human factor study and tests has been performed on visually impaired people and operators using assistance with augmented reality on tablets.

This Special Thematic Session (STS) was intended to provide a forum to discuss some major issues related to Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services and technologies to support aging in place. The papers in the session are introduced here. These cover a broad range of topics including the development of new solutions, existing solutions and their evaluation and also issues and preferences related to specific systems. The technologies described are very diverse and include communication systems, entertainment platforms, telecare systems, wearable technologies and assistive robots. Together these contributions can support others developing these types of systems in the future. In the end, we hope this can benefit the growing number of older people by supporting safety and independence, and thus help people to age with more dignity and enjoyment.

Maintaining healthy relationships and companionship are major challenges to prevent potentially harmful effects of loneliness and social isolation in older age. Therefore, to foster participation and user engagement of elderly people in online communication and entertainment the user experience of devices and services need to be improved substantially. This paper discusses a participatory design approach to design and implement a TV and tablet-based communications and entertainment platform called BRELOMATE. The results of a field study with 30 elderly people over five months shows that each users was online for 37.0 h and played the card game service for 23.3 h on average over the course of 8 weeks.

This paper presents the accessibility evaluation methodology of an information system (Polycare), which provides an integrated care model, patient-centered, supported by the use of advanced ICT systems and services that allows the monitoring and care of older chronic patients at their home.

In the European project Mobile-Age co-creation processes of digital mobile services with older adults have been studied. In order to experience such co-creation, several mobile apps applying open data have been developed in a structured co-creation process with senior citizens. Scientific work comprises the evaluation of the co-creation process itself, methods of co-creation, the exploration of representations of city maps for older adults, and the technical development and service provision. As an example, the paper describes the co-creation of a demonstrator application of a city district guide for the district of Bremen-Hemelingen.

In this research, new concept elderly people watching system that aims to reduce the burden of the staff of community general support center is introduced. The experiment using robotic dolls to determine the system requirement. As a result, importance of appearance and communication function of the robot was confirmed. The robot which supports watching elderly people has been developed. It can give daily life related information to the elderly user by aural communication.

The design of a specific service related to loneliness assumes particular relevance for the quality of life of elderly people, because this feeling favorites a large number of pathologies and disabilities status. Since a very dangerous element for this condition is represented by the worsening of and decrease in the network of human relationships, a service able to provide suggestions to the users in a specific context, a condominium, is here presented. The innovative idea is a study of an automatic tool that is able to make a decision as to the best suggestion for a specific user, depending on what both she and other people are doing. The service is not at a personal level, but at the level of a network of people: this implies a different approach also for the adaptation, because different adaptations must necessarily work together. A preliminary interface for tablet is available.

Due to the exponential growth of the elderly population, there is an urgent need for development of telecare solutions supporting informal caregiving which allow the elderly to remain independent and age at home. As usability of such solutions is crucial for effective use, we employed heuristic evaluation to assess the user interface of the newly developed mobile application for telecare – TeleStiki. Our aim was to provide guidelines for similar telecare solutions based on both existing research and results of heuristic evaluation. We noticed that, (among other criteria), many applications lack help for the users so it is necessary to include settings or a help button in applications. These guidelines may solve similar solutions in the future on how developers can improve user interfaces of telecare mobile applications and, consequently, improve user experience when supporting aging at home.

Since new technology is, in principle, accessible to users of all ages, it needs to be suitable for all generations. The purpose of this study is to identify usability issues of smartwatches and contrast the problems and issues that elderly encountered to those experienced by a younger age group. In total 16 test subjects, eight of each age group (under-30s and over-60s), were observed quantitatively and qualitatively while performing basic tasks on a common smartwatch. The results indicate that the voice command evoked issues for all ages, whereas the older participants were facing more difficulties concerning the menu structure, the user interface and performing gestures on the touchscreen. While the task completion rate did not significantly differ between the age groups and the ease of use was mostly perceived equally, the elderly needed significantly more time and more personal assistance to perform the tasks. Understanding the likely age-specific differences in smartwatch interaction points to a need for further support for the elderly.

This paper reviews technology to support aging in place. Although the populations in many countries are aging and various funding programmes have supported their development, these technologies are not yet widespread. To support people developing these systems in having more success in the future, here types of systems available and a number of systems that have been developed are described. Furthermore, some of the benefits, both potential and realized, are described.

The ageing of the human population is a threat to many countries in the world and this fact creates new challenges for age-friendly living, recreational and working environments. Therefore, solutions that can support senior citizens (Longinos for the men and Longinas for the women) will be necessary, in order to help them stay actively involved in their professional life for longer. This is possible by designing fit for purpose working environments and by enabling flexible management of job-, leisure- and health-related activities, considering their needs at the workplace, at home and on the move, with a particular focus on fighting social isolation. This project presents a robotic digital solution that makes provision for Longinos/Longinas persons, that are above 70 years old, a single view of integrated health, business and social data spread respectively in online health communities, online project management websites and social networks, as well as the provision of a set of services, that will allow them to manage huge amounts of data.

A study was undertaken with 189 young computer science students to assess whether as future developers of technologies for older people, they have ageist and sexist attitudes about people as users of technology. They were shown a picture of either a young or old woman or man and asked to assess the likelihood that this person would use a desktop computer, laptop computer and a smartphone, and their level of expertise in each of these technologies. The results showed that the students did have negative perceptions of the older people in comparison to young people. They also thought that women were less expert with the technologies than men, although there was no difference in the likelihood of them using the technology. However, there was no evidence of a “double standard” of older women being perceived particularly negatively.

Most countries of the world are heading towards an ageing society. At the same time, newer technologies are constantly created, while the advances in networks and wireless communications allow other technologies like mobile and cloud computing to become ubiquitous. This leads to a problem that we are identifying and confronting, to make the use of modern technology easier for older adults, since it is in principle more easily perceivable by younger people. This paper presents a questionnaire study that took place during the design of a gamified mobile application that targets older people. In total 133 older adults answered the questionnaire consisting of 41 questions, providing an insightful view of their attitude towards modern technology, their health, physical activity tracking, playing games and social interaction using technology. The results provide useful insights to researchers and developers who target this age group for their human-centric applications and services.

Japanese society is recently facing the problem of having a “super-aging” population. The proportion of aged people is growing. The rate of families consisting of old couples and old singles is increasing. In some cases s/he may pass an entire day without speaking a word, which can lead to a disuse of cognitive functions and a heightened risk of dementia and/or depression. Thus, the younger generations are expected to be talking partners for aged people, but there is a problem in that they are unfamiliar with how to communicate with the elderly. In order to reduce the mental burdens of these partner young adults, they focused on the “reminiscence technique”, which is effective in counteracting dementia. To support communication with elderly people using photographs, we aim to study quantification of photographic images suitable for conversation with elderly people by emotion of young people in order to reduce the burden of young people.

The presented study investigated the preferences of seniors towards artificial avatars showing personality both from a pragmatic and a hedonic point of view. Also, preferences for technological devices were considered. The involved participants were 45 adults (20 female) aged 65+ years in good health. They were asked to watch video clips of 4 agents (two males and two females) showing different personality traits (i.e. angry, depressed, joyful, and practical), and subsequently had to complete a questionnaire. Subjects were not informed about an avatar’s personality and not openly interviewed regarding this subject. Rather, the administered questionnaire was devoted to test their perception of agents and whether such complies with the intended characteristics. Results show that subjects prefer female agents with a positive personality (joyful and practical) on both pragmatic and hedonic dimensions of the interactive system.

Over the past decade, technologies have transformed society, education, entertainment, business and now healthcare. Today, these technologies are reaching a level of maturity needed to support the robust and broad scope of healthcare. It has only been recently that smart phones, tablets, wearable information and communication devices as well as smart home hubs for automation and control, environmental sensors, cloud computing, interfacing with high-speed networks have vastly expanded the technological foundation associated with healthcare. This Special Thematic Session will address mHealth for people with disability from several disease, disorder and technology perspectives.

This paper provides an overview and background information related to the mHealth technology landscape specific for the ICCHP 2018 Special Thematic Session of the same title. Specifically, it contains: (1) an overview of mHealth including a working definition, its broad scope on healthcare, and its current state for people with disabilities; (2) types of mHealth technologies; (3) the availability of mobile health apps designed for people with disabilities; (4) the state of the art of the effectiveness of mHealth apps for people with disabilities; and, (5) a review of emerging trends in mHealth technology development and its adoption.

Significant health disparities exist between the general population and people with disabilities, particularly with respect to chronic health conditions. Mobile healthcare – the delivery of healthcare via mobile communication devices – is witnessing tremendous growth and has been touted as an important new approach for management of chronic health conditions. At present, little is known about the current state of mobile healthcare for people with disabilities. Early evidence suggests they are not well represented in the growth of mobile healthcare, and particularly the proliferation of mobile health software applications (mHealth apps) for smartphones. Their omission in mHealth could lead to further health disparities. This article describes our research investigating the current state of mHealth apps targeting people with disabilities. Based on a survey of disabled smartphone users, we confirm that people with disabilities are under-represented in the growth of mHealth. We identify several areas of future research and development needed to support the inclusion of people with disabilities in the mHealth revolution.

Researches have shown that physical exercise in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an effective method reduce or limit the progress of the disease and improve physical and psychological health. However, exercise adherence is a challenge task. Many existing mobile exercise apps did not consider the special conditions of people with PD. This paper aims to design a mobile app to support physical exercise adherence among people with PD. Through the design of the app, we hope to test and contribute to the improvement of the existing guidelines and recommendations for mobile apps for people with PD.

This manuscript describes the development and testing of a device to measure walking speed. The Gaitbox is a custom, microprocessor-based device that uses an infrared distance sensor to automatically measure, calculate and display walking speed. Walking speed is a critical performance measure that has been shown to be a strong indicator of long-term health and life expectancy in older people. The Gaitbox was compared to the measures obtained by clinicians administering the timed NIH 4-m walk test and the Sprint System device.

This paper describes the development and testing of BreatheWell Wear, a stress management application (mobile app) developed for Android Wear smartwatches to assist military service members with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) to use deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing for managing stress. The paper describes rehabilitation needs and challenges of daily living of the user population, and the limitations of existing solutions for training and using diaphragmatic breathing. Features and functioning of BreatheWell Wear are presented along with a summary of our user-centered design approach to development. Testing for clinical effectiveness was conducted with a small sample. Participants were recruited from the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA where they were receiving comprehensive rehabilitation for TBI and PTSD. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated through collection of patient reported outcomes: (1) stress ratings, entered into the app by the user before and after each breathing session; (2) Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) to measure impact of using BreatheWell Wear after extended use; (3) changes in PTSD symptom severity gathered at study completion using the Posttraumatic Checklist-5 (PCL-5); (4) changes in anxiety, depression and psychological well-being were measured at study completion using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Flourishing Scale. Clinical measures of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and psychological well-being, showed moderate or greater clinically meaningful change. Participants also reported positive experiences using BreatheWell Wear.

In this paper, we argue for the value of participatory and interactive art, to increase the quality of health and health promoting technology, for children with special needs. UN states through several conventions that everyone has a right to take part in art and cultural experiences, also children and people with disabilities, because art is an important value in our society. With technology, we can make art accessible to people with special needs in completely new ways. By building on the participatory art tradition, in combination with new technology, we can develop new forms of expression and groundbreaking experiences. By incorporating knowledge about health promotion and universal design, we can create new health promoting technology and artistic empowering experiences, by making them more engaging, inspiring and participating for children with special needs. This opportunity has in too little extent, been recognized within Assistive Technology. The paper is based on our research and experience from testing an interactive art installation, with children with special needs at six schools within the Norwegian national school art program.

The growing potential of virtual reality (VR) systems presents an immense opportunity for amputee patients who are suffering from the medical condition which causes sensation of pain at the location of the missing limb called Phantom Limb Pain (PLP). The occurrence rate of PLP is reported 60–80% [1] among amputee patients and treatment methods vary between physical therapy, surgery and medication. One of the proven treatment methods is “Mirror Therapy” [3] and it is applied by visually projecting a healthy limb on the amputated part with the help of a mirror to create the perception of presence. Similar approach can also be represented in a virtual environment and immersion of VR can enhance the rehabilitation experience. Therefore, we aimed to improve the mirror therapy treatment by a VR application and to overcome the physical limitations by presenting potentially engaging activities with a way to treat double-limb amputees.

People with complex chronic conditions must learn to live with the disabilities and challenges that come with those conditions on a continuous basis. MyHealthMyRecord (MHMR) was designed to allow people to record video vignettes of enabling and/or disabling situations, opinions, musings, and other thoughts regarding their attempts to cope with, manage or work around those situations. One person living with a sudden onset chronic condition used MHMR to document their journey. Main findings were that vignettes were short duration, less than 1 min, and covered a range of topics regarding pain, accessibility and barriers, emotional reactions, systemic issues and recommendations, and MHMR improvements.

EyeRemember is a mobile app designed to run on wearable electronic devices and serve as an external memory aid for people with brain injury (BI). EyeRemember allows users to voice-record information about family, friends and caregivers (referred to as ‘contacts’ in the app). The technology detects the presence of Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons carried by the user’s contacts and reminds users of the recorded information when contacts are present. EyeRemember was first developed for Google Glass and later for Android Wear smartwatches. Both versions were developed in accordance with user-centered design principles, by including end-users and identifying their needs, wants and limitations throughout the design process. This paper describes the features and functionality of EyeRemember, its interaction with BLE beacons and the implementation of the user-centered design process used to collect ongoing feedback from people with brain injury, their caregivers and clinicians at Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The research design and results of clinical testing are also described. Results indicate EyeRemember is a clinically effective tool for memory compensation for some people with BI and suggests combining wearable computers with BLE beacons may be effective assistive technology. These results support previous research summarized in systematic guidelines recommending the use of external memory aids for memory compensation after BI and indicate it is likely these guidelines are applicable to novel and emerging technologies. The results also further validate previous research demonstrating systematic instruction as an effective method for training the use of technology for people with memory problems.

Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) is an observational evidence-based method for evaluating the quality of dementia care, and is widely used to implement Person-centred Care in dementia care settings. However, it is not easy to practice DCM because the method sets high requirements on the observer (mapper) to ensure it, causing difficulties and/or a burden during mapping.Authors have developed a new ICT-based DCM support system to solve this issue. We also developed a new evaluation test method using role-play videos, and assessed the reliability and usefulness of the system. The results revealed that (1) the prototype support system has already reached the level of conventional DCM in terms of mapping accuracy, (2) mappers highly appreciated the system for burden reduction and easier operation during mapping, and (3) new functionality of the system looked promising to increase mapping accuracy.

Personalisation of asthma management plans is important because asthma patients experience different triggers and symptoms as a result of the high heterogeneity level of the condition. Although this makes context-awareness suitable to support asthma management, existing context-aware solutions do not allow patients to personalise their management plans. This research proposes an approach to develop context-aware solutions allowing the personalisation of asthma management plans. It is derived on the basis of the literature review and a qualitative research that includes both asthma patients and carers. A prototype to illustrate the application of the approach is demonstrated.

This paper reports the findings of a study that developed a standardized method to track individual assistive technology (AT) interventions for any user, able to generate reports needed in clinical practice, measure the outcome and detect possible critical issues requiring adjustment. Individual AT interventions were carried out with 120 participants, and the process was tracked by means of a purposely-developed template including five sections: (1) contact data, (2) Assessment Report, (3) Verification Report, (4) Follow-up Report, and (5) statistical data. The outcome of the interventions was measured for 34 participants by means of three instruments (KWAZO, IPPA and QUEST). KWAZO proved useful to capture the user’s perception about the quality of the process. IPPA proved useful to describe the perceived effectiveness of the assistive solution provided; negative IPPA scores are clear alerts that the user needs to be contacted again to check what happened and - if possible - undertake corrective interventions; near-to-zero (<1) IPPA scores also suggest to check whether the assistive solution has proved ineffective or brought about positive effects in relation to some problems and negative effects in relation to others. Likewise, possible low QUEST scores (<3) alert that the related products had critical problems and corrective actions may be required, in order to increase the assistive solution effectiveness.

Abandonment of assistive technologies (ATs) is a serious problem – rates of abandonment can be high, 78% has been reported for hearing aids. The paper argues for the importance of studying the abandonment of ATs by collecting real-time data about the use and non-use of ATs in the lived experience of their users. In the AART-BC Project, we are studying the use and abandonment of mobility ATs including wheelchairs, walkers and prostheses. We present two apps, ESMMobilityAT and ProbMobilityAT to facilitate the collection of real-time data about mobility AT use and problems encountered with these ATs. ESMMobilityAT is based on the experience sampling method (ESM) and asks mobility AT users to answer a short questionnaire about their AT use seven times a day. ProbMobilityAT allows mobility AT users to report problems with their AT when they occur. The apps have been successfully piloted on Android and IOS smartphones, although a number of problems with deployment have been highlighted. They will now be used in a field study with mobility AT uses and can be adapted for other AT domains.

Conceptualization and development of assistive technology often differs greatly from industrial design and development. While assistive technology solutions are required to be highly individualizable to fit the needs of their diverse target group, industrial solutions need to be suitable for mass markets, which is also reflected by sales numbers and prices. While assistive technology often starts at human’s very basic needs such as the need for communication, industrial solutions are often intended to increase productivity and thus also financial gain. Nevertheless, development of assistive technology and of industrial components share several common grounds, especially in the area of Human-Computer Interaction (e.g., industrial workers have to deal with functional impairments). Although both domains could greatly benefit from a liaison, a transfer usually either does not take place at all or takes place at a late stage of development. This paper describes an applied domain transfer between assistive technology and industry during all phases of design and development of novel interaction solutions.

Increasing care needs represent major challenges for today’s care sectors. Developing assistive technologies such as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems pose a potential approach to face these challenges by relieving care staff or facilitating everyday life, e.g., for people with disabilities. Thereby, acceptance is essential for a sustainable adoption of assistive technologies in real life. So far, research has focused on technology-related as well as demographic factors and persons’ attitudes (e.g., technical self-efficacy) impacting technology acceptance. In contrast, individual attitudes towards the own situation - in particular individual attitudes towards care – have not been considered as potential influencing factors on the acceptance of assistive technologies. In order to create an appropriate measuring instrument for attitudes towards care, two empirical studies were carried out: In an online survey study (n = 34) persons’ attitudes towards the own care situation and their relationships to attitudes towards usage of assistive technologies were studied out of the perspective of people with disabilities. The exploratory confirmed instrument “attitudes towards care” was related with acceptance and perception of assistive technologies focusing on people of different ages with physical disabilities. Results of the second study (n = 64) verified these relationships focusing on elderly people in need of care. This suggests that attitudes towards care are acceptance-relevant for diverse groups of people. The results can be used to investigate relationships between individual perceptions of care and (assistive) technology acceptance in detail and to refine and adapt the attitude towards care instrument for diverse user groups.

In China, there are more than 13 million visual-impaired people, which obtain information by touching and hearing rather than vision. To help them access to information more conveniently, many efforts have been made in China: Firstly, it provides digital resources by building China Digital Library for Visual Impairment; Secondly, it develops a software called Sunshine Screen Reader to help visual-impaired people search through the computer; Also, it promotes SunshineReader, a portable device, to enable visual-impaired people obtain information from electronic documents and printed text. All these efforts achieve demonstrable results in narrowing down the gap between visual-impaired people and information. Generally speaking, most information can be accessed by CDLVI, Sunshine Screen Reader and SunshineReader.