Longitudinal Study of Two Virtual Cursors for People With Motor Impairments: A Performance and Satisfaction Analysis on Web Navigation

The lack of dexterity in the upper limbs of people with motor impairments may prevent the use of standard pointing devices, such as mice, to access graphical user interfaces. In these cases, pointing and clicking are usually performed by means of alternative devices such as joysticks, trackballs or standard keyboards. However, target acquisition can still be challenging for this group of people due to their physical condition. Based on previous works, we developed two virtual cursors: the novel cross cursor and the standard area cursor. They are devoted to assist two different groups of users with link selection within web pages: keyboard-only users, and joystick and trackball users, respectively. Both virtual cursors have been evaluated and compared with the original unassisted cursor in a longitudinal study. Eight people with motor impairments participated in an unsupervised experiment from their own personal computers at home. For a period of six weeks, each participant used both a virtual cursor and the original unassisted cursor to freely navigate the Web, and to perform predefined target acquisition tasks. Interaction data was automatically logged throughout the study along with subjective assessments concerning the usability of the virtual cursor being tested. Results show significant improvements for both virtual cursors in six of the seven cursor parameters studied, albeit with performance variations between some participants. The virtual cursors were extensively used for free web navigation and in their subjective assessments both were positively endorsed by participants who also put forward improvement suggestions for future developments

Adapting the Web for People With Upper Body Motor Impairments Using Touch Screen Tablets

People with disabilities frequently use the Internet to perform a variety of common activities; however, they may often encounter aggravated accessibility barriers when using mobile devices to access the Web. In order to alleviate the problems faced by this group when using mobile devices, we have extended a previously developed transcoding-based system that adapts non-accessible web pages to the needs of specific users in order to enhance their accessibility. In this version, we included new adaptation techniques gathered from the literature in order to apply transcoding techniques to mobile devices. The enhanced system was evaluated with eight users with reduced mobility using tablets. The exploratory study suggests that alternative interaction methods such as the ones named 'end tap' and 'steady tap' are beneficial for some participants with reduced mobility, dexterity or strength in the upper limbs. Other results show that six of the eight users preferred the adapted version with enlarged interaction elements which required less physical effort, even if this adaptation increases the size of the page with the disadvantages associated with such a change.This research work was developed within the project eGovernability, funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), under grant (TIM2014-52665-C2-1-R). J.E.P. holds a PhD Scholarship from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Some of the authors are members of the EGOKITUZ/ADIAN research team, supported by the Basque Government, Department of Education, Universities and Research under grant (IT980-16)

Accessible Ubiquitous Services for Supporting Daily Activities: A Case Study with Young Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

Ubiquitous environments have considerable potential to provide services supporting daily activities (using public transportation to and from workplace, using ATM machines, selecting and purchasing goods in ticketing or vending machines, etc.) in order to assist people with disabilities. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous service providers generally supply generic user interfaces which are not usually accessible for all potential end users. In this article, a case study to verify the adequacy of the user interfaces automatically generated by the Egoki system for two supporting ubiquitous services adapted to young adults with moderate intellectual disabilities was presented. The task completion times and the level of assistance required by participants when using the interfaces were analyzed. Participants were able to access services through a tablet and successfully complete the tasks, regardless of their level of expertise and familiarity with the service. Moreover, results indicate that their performance and confidence improved with practice, as they required fewer direct verbal and pointer cues to accomplish tasks. By applying observational methods during the experimental sessions, several potential improvements for the automated interface generation process were also detected.This research work was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government and by the European Regional Development Fund [projects TIN2014-52665-C2-1-R and TIN2017-85409-P], and by the Basque Government, Department of Education, Universities and Research under grant [IT980-16]

Inclusive Web Empirical Studies in Remote and In-Situ Settings: A User Evaluation of the RemoTest Platform

Web accessibility evaluation requires tests to be carried out with real users with disabilities performing real tasks or activities. To recruit an appropriate group of users and to observe their performance in the real world is difficult. For this reason we have developed RemoTest, a platform that assists researchers designing experiments, conducting remote and in-situ experimental sessions and analyzing the data gathered while the users are accessing the Web. Although this tool is oriented to experimenters, it is necessary to check whether the evaluation environments created by RemoTest are accessible or not to the users that participate in the tests. To this end, we conducted formal in-situ evaluations with 36 users with diverse characteristics. For this assessment, the participants were asked to install the platform, to fill in some automatically created questionnaires and to carry out several web navigation tasks. From the data gathered we analyzed the ease of the installation process, the accessibility of the automatically generated questionnaires, and user satisfaction. The results revealed the suitability of the platform for conducting inclusive experiments both in remote and in-situ contexts and provided guidelines on how the experiments should be set out.This research work was developed within the project eGovernability, funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, and the European Regional Development Fund, under grant (TIN2014-52665-C2-1-R MINECO/FEDER). J.E.P. holds a PhD Scholarship from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Some of the authors are members of the EGOKITUZ/ADIAN research team, supported by the Basque Government, Department of Education, Universities and Research under grant (IT980-16)

Supporting the Development of Accessible Web Applications

The aim of this paper is to review the best known methodologies for web applications development as well as the existing supporting tools and techniques from an accessibility-centric perspective. To this end, a number of development methodologies with their respective characteristics are described: model-based methodologies, user-centred processes, usability engineering methodologies and accessibility engineering methodologies. Some of these methodologies are provided with specific supporting tools which facilitate the accomplishment of specified tasks. However, there are methodologies which are not supported by specific tools. Therefore, web developers must deal with diverse tools in order to perform the corresponding activities. In this context, the development of accessible web applications is even more difficult. This paper concludes that there is not currently a holistic development framework to be used throughout the whole development process. Our contribution relies on a set of tools that support the different phases of the process. Since these tools are developed upon a common methodological basis, a high rate of interoperability is obtained. This cohesion allows their integration in a comprehensive framework so that the development of accessible web applications is facilitated

Including heterogeneous web accessibility guidelines in the development process

Abstract. The use of web applications has extremely increased in the last few years. However, some groups of users may experience difficulties when accessing them. Many different sets of accessibility guidelines have been developed in order to improve the quality of web interfaces. Some of them are of general purpose whereas others are specific for user, application or access device characteristics. The existing amount of heterogeneous accessibility guidelines makes it difficult to find, select and handle them in the development process. This paper proposes a flexible framework which facilitates and promotes the web accessibility awareness during all the development process. The basis of this framework is the Unified Guidelines Language (UGL), a uniform guidelines specification language developed as a result of a comprehensive study of different sets of guidelines. The main components of the framework are the guidelines management tool and the flexible evaluation module. Therefore, sharing, extending and searching for adequate accessibility guidelines as well as evaluating web accessibility according to different sets of guidelines become simpler tasks