48,019 research outputs found

    A framework for accessible m-government implementation

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    The great popularity and rapid diffusion of mobile technologies at worldwide level has also been recognised by the public sector, leading to the creation of m-government. A major challenge for m-government is accessibility – the provision of an equal service to all citizens irrespective of their psychical, mental or technical capabilities. This paper sketches the profiles of six citizen groups: Visually Impaired, Hearing Impaired, Motor Impaired, Speech Impaired, Cognitive Impaired and Elderly. M-government examples that target the aforementioned groups are discussed and a framework for accessible m-government implementation with reference to the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices is proposed

    WiMorse: a contactless Morse code text input system using ambient WiFi signals

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    International audienceRecent years have witnessed advances of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and their applications to enable contactless sensing and human-computer interaction in smart homes. For people with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), their motion capabilities are severely impaired and they have difficulties interacting with IoT devices and even communicating with other people. As the disease progresses, most patients lose their speech function eventually which makes the widely adopted voice-based solutions fail. In contrast, most patients can still move their fingers slightly even after they have lost the control of their arms and hands. Thus we propose to develop a Morse code based text input system, called WiMorse, which allows patients with minimal single-finger control to input and communicate with other people without attaching any sensor to their fingers. WiMorse leverages ubiquitous commodity WiFi devices to track subtle finger movements contactlessly and encode them as Morse code input. In order to sense the very subtle finger movements, we propose to employ the ratio of the Channel State Information (CSI) between two antennas to enhance the Signal to Noise Ratio. To address the severe location dependency issue in wireless sensing with accurate theoretical underpinning and experiments, we propose a signal transformation mechanism to automatically convert signals based on the input position, achieving stable sensing performance. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that WiMorse can achieve higher than 95% recognition accuracy for finger generated Morse code, and is robust against input position, environment changes, and user diversity

    Aiding the Visually Impaired: Developing an efficient Braille Printer

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    With the large number of partially or completely visually impaired persons in society, their integration as productive, educated and capable members of society is hampered heavily by a pervasively high level of braille illiteracy. This problem is further compounded by the fact that braille printers are prohibitively expensive - generally starting from two thousand US dollars, beyond the reach of the common man. Over the period of a year, the authors have tried to develop a Braille printer which attempts to overcome the problems inherent in commercial printers. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to introduce two prototypes - the first with an emphasis of cost-effectiveness, and the second prototype, which is more experimental and aims to eliminate several demerits of Braille printing. The first prototype has been constructed at a cost significantly less than the existing commercial braille printers. Both the prototypes of the device have been constructed, which will be shown.Comment: 6 pages. IEEE accepted paper (not published yet) International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI-2017

    Stressing the Boundaries of Mobile Accessibility

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    Mobile devices gather the communication capabilities as no other gadget. Plus, they now comprise a wider set of applications while still maintaining reduced size and weight. They have started to include accessibility features that enable the inclusion of disabled people. However, these inclusive efforts still fall short considering the possibilities of such devices. This is mainly due to the lack of interoperability and extensibility of current mobile operating systems (OS). In this paper, we present a case study of a multi-impaired person where access to basic mobile applications was provided in an applicational basis. We outline the main flaws in current mobile OS and suggest how these could further empower developers to provide accessibility components. These could then be compounded to provide system-wide inclusion to a wider range of (multi)-impairments.Comment: 3 pages, two figures, ACM CHI 2013 Mobile Accessibility Worksho

    Ambiguous keyboards for AAC

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    Purpose – “Ambiguous keyboards” and “disambiguation processes” are becoming universally recognised through the popularisation of “predictive text messaging” on mobile phones. As this paper shows, although originating in the AT and AAC fields, these terms and techniques no longer appear to be widely understood or adopted by practitioners or users. The purpose of this paper is to introduce these techniques, discussing the research and theory around them, and to suggest them as AT and AAC strategies to be considered by practitioners and users. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that describes the use of ambiguous keyboards and disambiguation. The hypothesis of the paper is that ambiguous keyboards and disambiguation processes offer potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of AAC and should thus be considered further in research and practice. Findings – The two broad methods for removing the ambiguity from the output of an ambiguous keyboard are presented. A summary of the literature around the use of disambiguation processes provided and the use of disambiguation processes for AAC discussed. Originality/value – This paper suggests that ambiguity should be adopted as a characteristic of an AAC keyboard as should the method of removing ambiguity – namely either coding or a disambiguation process

    ACCESSIBILITY IN CONTEXT: UNDERSTANDING THE TRULY MOBILE EXPERIENCE OF USERS WITH MOTOR IMPAIRMENTS

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    Touchscreen smartphones are becoming broadly adopted by the US population. Ensuring that these devices are accessible for people with disabilities is critical for equal access. For people with motor impairments, the vast majority of studies on touchscreen mobile accessibility have taken place in the laboratory. These studies show that while touchscreen input offers advantages, such as requiring less strength than physical buttons, it also presents accessibility challenges, such as the difficulty of tapping on small targets or making multitouch gestures. However, because of the focus on controlled lab settings, past work does not provide an understanding of contextual factors that impact smartphone use in everyday life, and the activities these devices enable for people with motor impairments. To investigate these issues, this thesis research includes two studies, first, an in-person study with four participants with motor impairments that included diary entries and an observational session, and, secondarily, an online survey with nine respondents. Using case study analysis for the in-person participants, we found that mobile devices have the potential to help motor-impaired users reduce the physical effort required for everyday tasks (e.g., turning on a TV, checking transit accessibility in advance), that challenges in touchscreen input still exist, and that the impact of situational impairments to this population can be impeding. The online survey results confirm these findings, for example, highlighting the difficulty of text input, particularly when users are out and mobile rather than at home. Based on these findings, future research should focus on the enhancement of current touchscreen input, exploring the potential of wearable devices for mobile accessibility, and designing more applications and services to improve access to physical world

    Developing brain-body interfaces for the visually impaired

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    Personalised tiling paradigm for motor impaired users

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