Analysis and recommendations on Design for All related higher education and research policies in EU member countries

The report includes recommendations for further development of DfA related strategies and policies in Europe, based on the analysis of the state of the art in Design for All education and research strategies and policies in EU member countries, complemented with considerations on respective strategies in the USA

Teaching DfA core knowledge and skill sets; experience in including inclusive design

The purpose of this document is twofold. Firstly it is to present the teaching pilots that were undertaken by members of the network, and describes the pilot setting and the material taught, as related to the taxonomy of Design for All knowledge and skill sets developed in previous deliverables. Each pilot indicates topics taught and to which categories of the taxonomy they belong. Furthermore, student expectations and reactions to the DfA teaching pilots are described by means of the information gained from questionnaires. In this way the taxonomy is evaluated by the teaching pilot experiences for robustness in completeness and usefulness. The second purpose of this exercise is to highlight best practices in, and possible obstacles and other challenges to implementing and maintaining of Design for All courses and modules in a range of higher education schemes, so that education policies and strategies may be informed accordingly. Both of these objectives help to further the work on recommendations for curriculum work on Design for All, in terms of content and in terms of sustainability

Barrierefreiheit. Grundlage gerechter webbasierter Lernchancen

E-Learning-Technologien verfügen über ein großes Potenzial, um pädagogische Konzepte zu realisieren, welche individuelle Anforderungen und Interessen unterstützen. Leider behindert mangelndes Bewusstsein und fehlendes Know-How auf Seiten von Lehrenden, Entwicklerinnen und Entwicklern und Administratorinnen und Administratoren die Möglichkeiten auszuschöpfen, um Barrieren in Lernmaterialien und Lernumgebungen abzubauen. Dieses Kapitel stellt grundlegende Informationen und Hinweise zur Barrierefreiheit von webbasierten Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien zusammen und gibt konkrete Hinweise für die Verwendung Assistierender Technologien (AT) in Lehr- und Lernkontexten. (DIPF/Orig.

Simplification of Painting Images for Tactile Perception by Visually Impaired Persons

International audienc

Simplification of Painting Images for Tactile Perception by Visually Impaired Persons

International audienc

Austrian Literature Online (ALO): How Electronic Libraries, Cultural Heritage and Service Provision for Print Disabled People work together

Digitisation is one key objective at the beginning of the information society. More and more efforts are spent to make documents usable on computers and via the Internet. This also addresses a major need of print disabled people. Access to documents in digital format is the prerequisite to be able to apply assisitve technology to get access to documents at the Human Computer Interface (HCI).This paper presents the initiative "Austrian Literature Online" and how this project addresses the needs of print disabled people. A virtual library system was developed for presentation and preservation purposes of old literature. This system and the documents handled are designed according to the needs of print disabled people. Research was done on a more efficient and cost effective workflow management in digitisation. Till now copyright free literature has been made available in accessible formats. The system is also developed further to provide blind and visually handicapped students a convenient access to study literature

Accessibility of Co-Located Meetings

Non-verbal communication is an important carrier of information. Even though the spoken word can be heard by blind and visually impaired persons, up to 60% of the overall information still remains inaccessibly to them due to its visual character [11]. However, there is a wide spectrum of non-verbal communication elements, and not all of them are of the same importance. In particular for group meetings, facial expressions and pointing gestures are relevant, which need to be captured, interpreted and output to the blind and visually impaired person. This session first gives a systematic approach to gather the accessibility requirements for blind and visually impaired persons, from which two typical requirements are selected and discussed in more detail. Here, solutions for capturing and interpreting are provided, and finally the session introduces a concept for accessible user interfaces.ISSN:0302-9743ISSN:1611-334

Accessibility of Non-verbal Communication: Making Spatial Information Accessible to People with Disabilities

Non-verbal communication (NVC) is challenging to People with disabilities. Depending on their impairment, they are either unable to perceive relational gestures within performed by sighted people, or they are unable to perform gestures by themselves in such an Information space (in case of motoric impairments such as cerebral palsy). Also other 3D gestures such as sign language and other aspects of non-verbal communication could provide an accessibility problem during training, interaction, and communication. This summary paper gives an overview on new approaches, how computers could mitigate these various impairments. Based on this we discuss how the papers accepted for this session relate and contribute to this new and challenging domain.ISSN:0302-9743ISSN:1611-334