Designing for designers: Towards the development of accessible ICT products and services using the VERITAS framework

Among key design practices which contribute to the development of inclusive ICT products and services is user testing with people with disabilities. Traditionally, this involves partial or minimal user testing through the usage of standard heuristics, employing external assisting devices, and the direct feedback of impaired users. However, efficiency could be improved if designers could readily analyse the needs of their target audience. The VERITAS framework simulates and systematically analyses how users with various impairments interact with the use of ICT products and services. Findings show that the VERITAS framework is useful to designers, offering an intuitive approach to inclusive design.The work presented in this article forms part of VERITAS, which is funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme (FP7) (grant agreement # 247765 FP7-ICT-2009.7.2)

A Persona-based Extension for Massive Open Online Courses in Accessible Design

AbstractIn this paper, we present a new participatory design for learning, developed in the context of a transnational initiative for creating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Accessible Design for ICT. The core idea is creating an additional learning benefit by means of immersive learning experience. This is achieved by simulating scenarios, in which the participants in the MOOC course are prompted to take on the role of accessible media author, and user, vice versa. The approach is based on the concept of “personas”, a user centered design methodology that illustrates practical needs by portraying realistic personal profiles of hypothetical characters

An investigation into the perspectives of providers and learners on MOOC accessibility

An effective open eLearning environment should consider the target learner’s abilities, learning goals, where learning takes place, and which specific device(s) the learner uses. MOOC platforms struggle to take these factors into account and typically are not accessible, inhibiting access to environments that are intended to be open to all. A series of research initiatives are described that are intended to benefit MOOC providers in achieving greater accessibility and disabled learners to improve their lifelong learning and re-skilling. In this paper, we first outline the rationale, the research questions, and the methodology. The research approach includes interviews, online surveys and a MOOC accessibility audit; we also include factors such the risk management of the research programme and ethical considerations when conducting research with vulnerable learners. Preliminary results are presented from interviews with providers and experts and from analysis of surveys of learners. Finally, we outline the future research opportunities. This paper is framed within the context of the Doctoral Consortium organised at the TEEM'17 conference

IFIP TC 13 Seminar: trends in HCI proceedings, March 26, 2007, Salamanca (Spain)

Actas del 13o. Seminario de la International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), celebrado en Salamanca el 26 de marzo de 2007, sobre las nuevas líneas de investigación en la interacción hombre-máquina, gestión del conocimiento y enseñanza por la Web

Use Cases for Design Personas : A Systematic Review and New Frontiers

Personas represent the needs of users in diverse populations and impact design by endearing empathy and improving communication. While personas have been lauded for their benefits, we could locate no prior review of persona use cases in design, prompting the question: how are personas actually used to achieve these benefits? To address this question, we review 95 articles containing persona application across multiple domains, and identify software development, healthcare, and higher education as the top domains that employ personas. We then present a three-stage design hierarchy of persona usage to describe how personas are used in design tasks. Finally, we assess the increasing trend of persona initiatives aimed towards social good rather than solely commercial interests. Our findings establish a roadmap of best practices for how practitioners can innovatively employ personas to increase the value of designs and highlight avenues of using personas for socially impactful purposes.© 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9157-3/22/04. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517589fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

HCI in e-Government and e-Democracy

This chapter introduces the application of HCI design processes and design principles in e-government and e-democracy. We elaborate on HCI design processes and six HCI design principles in the context of e-government and e-democracy, including citizen-centered design, usability, accessibility, access to information, transaction efficiency, and security and privacy. Then, we present two cases to demonstrate the value of applying the HCI processes and design principles in developing and deploying e-government and e-democracy. Finally, we highlight the challenges faced by e-government and e-democracy as well as the future trends. In conclusion, HCI can help the success of e-government and e-democracy and their future growth

Designing a Dyslexia-Friendly Interaction with News Articles

This master's thesis presents a research project focused on improving the accessibility of news articles for people with dyslexia. A significant portion of online news content is text-based, which poses challenges for individuals with reading difficulties. While there are existing digital tools for text simplification and summarization, there is a lack of solutions specifically designed for dyslexic readers, and even fewer adapt to languages other than English. The project addresses this gap with the development of a prototype that generates simplified versions of Norwegian news articles. Adopting a user-centered perspective, qualitative research methods and literature research were conducted to provide a basis for the design process. The later developed prototype aims to provide a flexible model that can accommodate the different reading experiences and perspectives of dyslexic people. Its main functionality lies in visual and content-related text modifications. Together with results from corresponding user tests, the high-fidelity prototype provides detailed findings on how news articles can be made more accessible. They offer insights into the requirements and needs of news consumers with dyslexia and explore the potential of automatic text simplification in this context. The results can benefit companies, institutions, and organizations that are seeking to provide accessible news content, eliminating the need for manual simplification of every article. Moreover, the research conducted in this project can support further studies on design and digital accessibility solutions.Master's Thesis in Interaction and Media DesignMIX350MASV-MI

Applied design thinking in urban air mobility: creating the airtaxi cabin design of the future from a user perspective

In the course of developing digital and future aviation cabin concepts at the German Aerospace Center, the exploration of user-centered and acceptance-enhancing methods plays a central role. The challenge here is to identify the flexible range of requirements of different user groups for a previously non-existent transport concept, to translate these into a concept and to generate a rapid evaluation process by the user groups. Therefore, this paper aims to demonstrate the application of the user-centered Design Thinking method in the design of cabin for future air taxis. Based on the Design Thinking approach and its iterative process steps, the direct implementation is described on the combined airport shuttle and intracity UAM concept. The main focus is on the identification of key user requirements by means of a focus group study and the evaluation of initial cabin designs and key ideas by means of an online survey. Consequently, the creative design process of a digital prototype will be presented. In addition to an increased awareness and acceptance among the population towards a novel mode of transportation, the application of the Design Thinking methodology offers a flexible and user-centered approach for further testing and simulation scenarios.Comment: 13 page