Smartphones and people with intellectual disabilities: An international comparison of contextual social barriers for effective usage

Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous. However, very little research has been carried out on the use, benefits or barriers of this technology by people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID), either in an educational or social context. This paper explores self-reported constraints upon usage of smartphones by ID in a study conducted in the UK (with 59 participants) and replicated in a smaller scale in Brazil (23). The studies explored these issues via in-depth group and individual interview and observation. In both countries, similar 'self-imposed' barriers were elicited, with different emphasis. The categories 'reluctance to reveal oneself online' and 'concerns about factors beyond one's control' (viruses, unreliable hardware) were more evident in UK participant comments. Factors in the category 'burden of responsibility', specifically fear of assault were emphasized by Brazilians. Constraints imposed by supporters, in both groups, included prohibitions, restrictions and usage monitoring, especially with regard to social media. These constraints were justified as being to protect the individuals. External barriers such as usability issues, cost management were mentioned by both groups. Overall, use of the technology by this cohort can be seen as a tension between enablement and control, with emphases on different aspects of these forces related to the social conditions prevailing in each country. All rights reserved. Copyright 2020

Accessibility in health mobile applications

Abstract. Nowadays, there is a vast number of mobile devices capable of storing an individual’s entire life. There are applications for everything, from banking to ordering food and clothes, but also different health applications targeted towards different impairments and self-health care management. Self-health care management applications can have a significant impact on individuals with various diseases and impairments. However, it is essential that these applications are accessible to users with different impairments such as motor and vision impairments. The purpose of this study was to examine accessibility concerns in mobile health applications for individuals with multiple sclerosis and evaluate how these concerns were addressed. Multiple sclerosis was chosen as the focus of this study because its symptoms encompass a range of impairments, including vision, motion, hearing, and cognitive limitations. The study was conducted with benchmarking multiple sclerosis applications obtained in Google Play store. Benchmarking focused on accessibility, and measurements and metrics were gathered testing applications with Google Accessibility Scanner and TalkBack screen reader. Measurements were based on web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2 and accessibility guidelines for mobile applications. None of the tested applications followed accessibility guideline requirements based on benchmarking metrics. When examining the metrics from the perspective of impairments, it was found that applications had accessibility concerns related to motor and vision impairments. The applications addressed requirements for hearing impairments in applicable features, while testing cognitive impairment requirements proved challenging with the selected testing tools. In the future, it is recommended to conduct additional accessibility testing for cognitive impairments using methods such as manual accessibility testing and user testing

What common design principles can be distilled out from literature in the field of technologies and learning difficulties that might inform the design of technologies within the EU funded ARCHES Project?

The focus of this research report is people who have diverse access needs associated with perception, memory, cognition and communication- those who are frequently ascribed the label of ‘learning difficulties’1 and the technologies that may help to enhance their access to and inclusion into cultural and heritage sites (including digital assets)

COPING WITH MOTHERHOOD: THE ROLE OF MOBILE PHONES FOR FIRST TIME MOTHERS IN SINGAPORE

Master'sMASTER OF ART

AN INVESTIGATION OF USER INTERFACE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A MOBILE HEALTH SYSTEM FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DEXTERITY IMPAIRMENTS

Mobile health (mHealth) systems have a great potential to empower individuals with chronic disease and disabilities to engage in preventive self-care. Before persons with disabilities can harness the potential of mhealth, the accessibility of mhealth systems should be addressed. An innovative mHealth system called iMHere (Internet Mobile Health and Rehabilitation) has been developed at the University of Pittsburgh to support self-care and adherence to self-care regimens for individuals with spina bifida and other complex conditions who are vulnerable to secondary complications. However, the existing design of the iMHere system was not designed to accommodate users with dexterity impairments. The overall goal of this research is to design and transform an existing mHealth system to make it more usable and accessible for users with dexterity impairment. To achieve this goal, three studies were conducted: Evaluation, Design and Development, and Validation of personalization and accessibility design in mobile health apps. The first study (Evaluation) was aimed to identify the barriers of the original iMHere apps to accessibility, and to explore the necessary features that may improve users’ experiences. The second study (Design and Development) was aimed to develop innovative designs to improve the accessibility and usability of the mHealth system. The third study (Validation) was aimed to evaluate the users’ acceptance of and preferences regarding the personalized and accessible mHealth services on a smartphone. The accessible design and development model that is presented in this dissertation incorporates user-interface components related to physical presentation (widgets, visual cues) and navigation (activity flow and layout order). Personalization that provides the ability for a user to modify the appearance of content, such as the size of the icons and the color of text, are proposed as an optimal solution to address potential issues and barriers to accessibility. The importance of personalization strategies for accessibility is also discussed

User participation in the design and development of Web 2.0 technologies for people with learning difficulties

In the twenty-first century People with Learning Difficulties (PWLD) still face oppression, discrimination and exclusion from the mainstream of social life. Over recent decades the policy of the United Kingdom’s (UK) government and activist organisations regarding people with learning difficulties has been on enabling inclusion, ensuring rights, providing choice and developing advocacy and independence. People with learning difficulties have been moved out of institutions with the intention to be included and respected as equal members of society. During the same decades that the government and activist organisations have been striving for the inclusion and equality of people with learning difficulties, the use of Information Technology (IT) has reached pervasive levels, to the degree that it is almost impossible for individuals to socially function successfully, unless they have access to it. Unfortunately, most IT is not designed to be usable and accessible to people with learning difficulties and this is a major barrier for their social inclusion.Participatory Design (PD) methodologies which emphasise end-user involvement in the software development process are widely considered the key to system usability and accessibility. However, most researchers and software developers believe that people with learning difficulties are not capable of participating in the process of development as a result of their disabilities. Others, report that they do not know how to work with this specific group of disabled end-users. This discriminatory behaviour is a major reason why IT remains inaccessible to people with learning difficulties. The study described in this thesis combined Evolutionary Prototyping, a software development methodology and Participatory Action Research (PAR), a social science methodology, in order to involve a cohort of four Health Trainers with learning difficulties in the development of a Web 2.0 based system. The aims of the study were to explore how people with learning difficulties could be involved in the development of a software system and if they could use a system developed with their participation. A further aim was to explore how software developers can approach the field of Learning Disability, the issues they will face and how those issues can be overcome. Qualitative data was gathered during fourteen Participatory Action Research meetings, in which the Health Trainers were involved in research, software development and system use. The data was analysed using Thematic Content Analysis facilitated by the use of the NVivo software package. The findings were validated by the participating Health Trainers.The findings suggest that during software development participation, the Health Trainers faced a number of challenges. However, the Health Trainers indicated the type of support they needed from the researcher in order to overcome them. The support required was easy to provide and the Health Trainers managed to engage in the software development process. The study conducted a system use evaluation to explore if the developed system was usable and accessible to the Health Trainers. The Health Trainers managed to complete all the system tasks posed to them during the evaluation. This suggests that the developed system was usable and accessible to the Health Trainers. Further evidence suggests that a number of factors affected the participation of the Health Trainers during development and during the use of the system. Finally, the study explored how the developed system was used over the long run, in a period of eighteen months. The findings suggest that system use over time was affected by factors other than the system’s accessibility and usability. Concluding, the findings suggest that with easy to provide support, the Health Trainers with learning difficulties could be involved in software development and they could use a system developed with their participation. It is hoped that the findings be used by policy makers and advocacy groups, to make a case towards convincing researchers and software developers to involve more people with learning difficulties in software development, thus making systems accessible to this community of end-users

A PHENOMENOLOGICAL LOOK AT THE LIFE HACKING-ENABLED PRACTICES OF INDIVIDUALS WITH MOBILITY AND DEXTERITY IMPAIRMENTS

Human-computer interaction and assistive technology research and practice are replete with examples of mostly non-disabled individuals trying to empower individuals with disabilities through the design and provision of accessible products. This study asks one overarching question: what can these communities learn from the self-driven embodied experiences of individuals with disabilities who address accessibility, impairment, and everyday life concerns for themselves? The goal of this dissertation is to examine the underexplored adaptation, modification, and design-like activities of individuals with mobility and dexterity impairments as well as the implications of these activities for researchers, designers, and individuals with disabilities. This phenomenological study examined the embodied everyday life practices of 16 individuals with mobility and dexterity impairments as well as well as their efforts to transform disabling practices into enabling ones. Using sensitizing constructs from contemporary social practice theory approaches as described by Andreas Reckwitz and Theodore Schatzki as well Bruno Latour’s articulation of actor-network theory, this interpretive qualitative research study uncovers different ways participants were dis/enabled and dis/empowered in their daily life practices. Findings point to issues most HCI researchers and professional designers rarely consider in their efforts to study access issues and develop accessible technology, including the impact of the embodied perspectives of mostly non-disabled researchers and designers on the everyday life practices of individuals who live with impairments

Investigating retrospective interoperability between the accessible and mobile webs with regard to user input

The World Wide Web (Web) has become a key technology to provide access to on-line information. The Mobile Web users, who access the Web using small devices such as mobile phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), make errors on entering text and controlling cursors. These errors are caused by both the characteristics of a device and the environment in which it is used, and are called situational impairments. Disabled Web users, on the other hand, have difficulties in accessing the Web due to their impairments in visual, hearing or motor abilities. We assert that errors experienced by the Mobile Web users share similarity in scope with those hindering motor-impaired Web users with dexterity issues, and existing solutions from the motor-impaired users domain can be migrated to the Mobile Web domain to address the common errors.Results of a systematic literature survey have revealed 12 error types that affect both the Mobile Web users and disabled Web users. These errors range from unable to locate a key to unable to pin-point a cursor. User experiments have confirmed that the Mobile Web users and motor-impaired Web users share errors in scope: they both miss key presses, press additional keys, unintentionally press a key more than once or press a key too long. In addition, both small device users and motor-impaired desktop users have difficulties in performing clicking, multiple clicking and drag selecting. Furthermore, when small device users are moving, both the scope and the magnitude of the errors are shared. In order to address these errors, we have migrated existing solutions from the disabled Web users domain into the Mobile Web users domain. We have developed a typing error correction system for the Mobile Web users. Results of the user evaluation have indicated that the proposed system can significantly reduce the error rates of the Mobile Web users.This work has an important contribution to both the Web accessibility field and the Mobile Web field. By leveraging research from the Web accessibility field into the Mobile Web field, we have linked two disjoint domains together. We have migrated solutions from one domain to another, and thus have improved the usability and accessibility of the Mobile Web.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Papel dos dispositivos móveis nas aprendizagens informais dos jovens com trissomia 21: um estudo de caso

Doutoramento em Multimédia em EducaçãoNuma altura em que as tecnologias de informação e comunicação se posicionam na linha da frente dos vários cenários educativos, dando ímpeto motivacional aos processos de ensino e aprendizagem das crianças e jovens com problemáticas específicas, importa compreender o papel dos atuais dispositivos móveis de interface táctil, na mediação das aprendizagens informais dos jovens com T21. Com uma abordagem metodológica assente no estudo de caso, esta investigação, de cariz marcadamente exploratório, teve como participante primário um jovem com T21, nas três etapas investigativas. A primeira etapa, identificada no contexto desta investigação como estudo preliminar, foi desenvolvida em parceria com outro investigador, tendo permitido a validação de um protótipo, sustentado num modelo concetual assente na hierarquia Cenário, Evento, Tarefa. Este modelo pode ser mapeado para outros cenários de aprendizagem (formal, informal ou não formal), conferindo-lhe escalabilidade e adaptabilidade. Ainda nesta primeira etapa foi possível aferir que o participante poderia beneficiar de um modelo de aprendizagem sustentado na instanciação de momentos. Na segunda etapa, foi realizado um estudo comparativo entre dois dispositivos móveis de interface táctil (iPad e iPhone) que permitiu identificar uma maior adequabilidade do smartphone aos cenários de aprendizagem informal distinguidos, nesta investigação, como determinantes à formação da pessoa com T21. Os resultados da terceira etapa viabilizaram a especificação de uma prova de conceito de uma app mobile, suportada na instanciação de três momentos, designados de Pré Evento, Evento e Pós Evento. Esta revelou-se uma estratégia importante no auxílio às aprendizagens do perfil de jovens similares ao do participante, tendo sido validada, em contexto de entrevista, por diferentes intervenientes das relações educacionais do participante. A Prova de Conceito prevê, ainda, a utilização de apps de uso comum, rentabilizando o potencial de uso dos dispositivos móveis de interface táctil, no suporte à realização de eventos funcionais do quotidiano típico do participante, nomeadamente no campo de competências transversais, como é o caso da literacia financeira. A utilização de apps de uso comum é ainda identificada como uma mais-valia para a normalização de competências digitais, minimizando, desde logo, o hiato tecnológico existente entre este perfil de utilizadores e os seus pares com um desenvolvimento típico. O envolvimento parental e de outros intervenientes ligados às dinâmicas educacionais do jovem revelaram-se também fundamentais à operacionalização da Prova de Conceito apresentada. Dada a unicidade deste estudo de caso, os resultados dificilmente podem ser generalizáveis, contudo, o estudo corrobora resultados presentes em investigações mais robustas, que reconhecem o potencial dos dispositivos móveis nas práticas diárias de jovens com T21.At a time when information and communication technologies are at the forefront of the various educational scenarios, giving motivational impetus to the teaching and learning processes of children and young people with disabilities is important to understand the role of the current digital mobile devices in the mediation processes of teenagers with Down Syndrome, focusing in informal learning contexts. Following a case study approach, this exploratory research had as a primary participant a teenage boy with T21. The first stage of this investigation, as a preliminary study, was developed in collaboration with another researcher, resulting in the validation of a developed prototype supported in a hierarchy model based on scenario, event, and task. This hierarchical model could be mapped to other learning scenarios giving it scalability and adaptability. Additionally, it was possible to verify that the participant could benefit from a model of learning sustained in the instantiation of moments such as Pre event, Event and Post event. In the second stage, the comparative study between two digital mobile devices (iPad and iPhone) allowed to identify a greater suitability of the smartphone to the informal learning scenarios highlighted in this investigation as essential to the personal development of individuals with T21. The results of the third stage enabled the specification of a proof of concept of a mobile app, supported in the instantiation of three moments, called Pre Event, Event and Post Event. This proved to be an important strategy to help the learning of young people with a profile similar to the participant’s profile. The proof of concept was validated in the context of an interview by secondary and tertiary participants (participant parents, ICT expert and a special educational teacher). The proof of concept also foresees the common-use apps, making use of digital touch mobile devices possible, in order to support the performance of typical functional events of the participant's daily life, namely in the field of transversal competences, such as the case of financial literacy. Common-use apps are still identified as an added value for the standardization of digital skills, minimizing, from the start, the technological gap between this profile of users and their peers’ profile with a typical development. The involvement of parents and other actors related to the educational dynamics of the youngster have also proved to be fundamental to carry through the proof of concept presented. Given the uniqueness of this case study, the results can hardly be generalized. However, the study corroborates present findings in more robust investigations that recognize the potential of mobile devices in the daily practices of young people with T21