Group-based expert walkthroughs to compensate for limited access to target user groups as in case of chronically ill patients

Involvement of real end users right from the beginning of an IT project is understood nowadays as good practice particularly in research projects where new and innovative concepts are to be investigated. In some situations, this is not feasible though, because this would cause unreasonable burden on target users, e.g., in case of chronically ill older patients or it is simply not possible, because administrative hurdles like permission by ethical committees need to be overcome, therefore it is necessary to install substituting methods. In the PICASO project (Personalised Integrated Care Approach for Service Organisations and Care Models for Patients with Multi-Morbidity and Chronic Conditions) this was achieved by implementing group-based expert walkthroughs where experts with different work-domain expert knowledge, in this case from usability, accessibility, clinical practice and software development, walked through an application by following typical usage scenarios target users are supposed to achieve. In contrast to the original method outcomes of walkthroughs were documented in form of software requirements, i.e. essential functionalities and features of the envisioned application instead of usability and accessibility issues. This way a reference document for developers evolved that closed the gap in bringing user requirements to application development

Automatic modification of text for people with learning disabilities using internet services

The paper presents the results of a user study that investigates the applicability of automatic text modifications to support learning disabled people in text comprehension while browsing the Internet. It presents some results that contradict traditional beliefs in regard to better support reading in this target group by providing them with screen readers

IPCA: Adaptive interfaces based upon biofeedback sensors

This paper presents some preliminary results of the IPCA project, targeted to the development adaptive interfaces for people with severe motor and speech impairments based upon biofeedback sensors. We will introduce the results of the user requirements capture and their influence in the project prototype being developed at the moment