Towards a Smarter organization for a Self-servicing Society

Traditional social organizations such as those for the management of healthcare are the result of designs that matched well with an operational context considerably different from the one we are experiencing today. The new context reveals all the fragility of our societies. In this paper, a platform is introduced by combining social-oriented communities and complex-event processing concepts: SELFSERV. Its aim is to complement the "old recipes" with smarter forms of social organization based on the self-service paradigm and by exploring culture-specific aspects and technological challenges.Comment: Final version of a paper published in the Proceedings of International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion (DSAI'16), special track on Emergent Technologies for Ambient Assisted Living (ETAAL

Toward an integration of Web accessibility into testing processes

Proceedings of: 5th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion, DSAI 2013. Took place in November 13-15, 2013, in Vigo, Spain. The event web site is http://dsai2013.utad.pt/The goal of this paper is to review the literature in order to understand the implications of accessibility testing processes with the objective to detect potential improvements and developments in the field. Thus, a brief review is presented of the fundamental test processes proposed by the International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB) and the currently available literature about testing processes for evaluating the accessibility of web applications. The result of the review reflects an array of proposals to incorporate accessibility requirements and evaluation tools, but they do not describe a comprehensive testing process at each phase of the development lifecycle of accessible web applications.This research work is supported by the Research Network MAVIR (S2009/TIC-1542) and MULTIMEDICA project (TIN2010-20644-C03-01).Publicad

Are all Chats suitable for learning purposes? A study of the required characteristics

Proceedings of: 5th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion, DSAI 2013. Took place in November 13-15, 2013, in Vigo, Spain. The web site is http://dsai2013.utad.pt/The Chat is being used for more than one decade in learning environments as a useful Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)Tool. However, nowadays some students still usually face accessibility barriers when using Chats and, as a result, they cannot learn in the same way as their classmates. Thus, some of the equality principles of education are not accomplished. This paper shows a study of chat's characteristics and analyzes if commercial Chats with general purposes can be used for learning environments in an accessible way. This study has been carried out from the point of view of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines 2.0. The study analyzes fifteen commercial chats (desktop, mobile and web chats) and provides some recommendations in order to improve the accessibility of chats in learning environments.This research work has been partially supported by the research project MA2VICMR (S2009/TIC-1542) and by the project MULTIMEDICA (TIN2010-20644-C03-01).Publicad

Low-cost natural interface based on head movements

Sometimes people look for freedom in the virtual world. However, not all have the possibility to interact with a computer in the same way. Nowadays, almost every job requires interaction with computerized systems, so people with physical impairments do not have the same freedom to control a mouse, a keyboard or a touchscreen. In the last years, some of the government programs to help people with reduced mobility suffered a lot with the global economic crisis and some of those programs were even cut down to reduce costs. This paper focuses on the development of a touchless human-computer interface, which allows anyone to control a computer without using a keyboard, mouse or touchscreen. By reusing Microsoft Kinect sensors from old videogames consoles, a cost-reduced, easy to use, and open-source interface was developed, allowing control of a computer using only the head, eyes or mouth movements, with the possibility of complementary sound commands. There are already available similar commercial solutions, but they are so expensive that their price tends to be a real obstacle in their purchase; on the other hand, free solutions usually do not offer the freedom that people with reduced mobility need. The present solution tries to address these drawbacks. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V

Accessibility to mobile interfaces for older people

Proceedings of: 5th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion, DSAI 2013. Took place in November 13-15, 2013, in Vigo, Spain. The event web site is http://dsai2013.utad.pt/Accessibility is a major concern in our society nowadays. However, technology is always one step ahead and new devices appear before we can address the accessibility problems for the older ones. People with disabilities are not the only ones that are being excluded by technologies. Indeed, there is an exponential growth of the elderly population that suffers from age-related disabilities. Accessibility issues should be in mind for developers. Unfortunately, addressing these issues is even harder in new devices like mobile phones and tablets where there is not a proper set of guidelines focusing on this domain. This work provides: (1) a set of guidelines to keep in mind in order to achieve accessibility in mobile interfaces for older people. This checklist is the result of a review study of the literature, standards and best practices that are being performed in this area of knowledge, (2) use of this accessibility checklist aimed at elderly people, a survey of three mobile native Apps on android platform has been carried out, these Apps have as aim to modify the default interface for another more accessible one.Publicad

AraBoard: A Multiplatform Alternative and Augmentative Communication Tool

AbstractWe present AraBoard: an Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) tool developed to facilitate functional communication to people with complex communication needs. The tool is formed by two different applications: AraBoard Constructor, for the creation and edition of communication boards, and AraBoard Player, for the visualization of the boards previously generated. The main features that distinguish our tool are that it is multiplatform, it is low-cost, and it is highly configurable, adaptable to a wide range of users’ needs by modifying different parameters like the number and size of the cells, inclusion or not of audio, etc. The development has been assessed through 295 enquiries done via web. The answers have been analyzed and shown the high acceptance of the users

An accessible video player for older people: issues from a user test

There is a huge availability of videos that have been produced in a very fast and wide way, along with the popularity of Internet. This scenario should be carefully considered by the video authors since many users have different needs. It is important to keep in mind the accessibility requirements so that any user can overcome the barriers to access content regardless of their limitations imposed by either impairment or some temporary restriction. The current video players present barriers for many people, especially to the elderly, and one of the main barriers is the restriction to reproduce videos accessible on the Web. This paper describes a research, and the design and evaluation of an accessible video player (called Facilitas), in which a user test with older people is conducted. As a result, we discuss the issues reported by older people and the controls that were developed to assist them.CAPES (PEC-PG)5th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion (DSAI 2013).\ud Vigo, Spain. 13-15 november 2013

Online Test Tool to Determine the CEFR Reading Comprehension Level of Text

On the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale, the average reading comprehension level of the Dutch population is B1 and the average level of text provided by Dutch government organisations requires a considerably higher reading skills level (C1). This means that part of the population may have difficulty reading texts delivered to them by their own government. We built a simple and freely available online tool to give content editors an indication of the CEFR reading comprehension level of their texts. This paper describes the parameters of the tool and proposes a list of possible extensions to improve the quality and usability of the output

Easy-to-read Meets Accessible Web in the E-government Context

In the e-government context, content of information and service systems needs to be accessible and easy-to-read. E-government systems are increasingly self-service systems. If the content of these systems is incomprehensible, citizens are not able to exercise their rights or fulfill their duties. Comprehensibility, however, is more than just providing text that is easy to read. The ease-of-understanding of a text is a result of the interplay between content characteristics, reader characteristics and task/context characteristics, as is the case for usability. This multi-faceted form of accessibility cannot be assessed and evaluated with just the existing easy-to-read guidelines. Measuring ease-of-understanding, which is a legal requirement for e-government systems and other public services, requires a process-oriented approach besides the currently available product-oriented easy-to-read guidelines