Mobile recommender apps with privacy management for accessible and usable technologies

The paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing survey of the use of computers and mobile devices, interest in recommender apps and knowledge and concerns about privacy issues amongst English and Italian speaking disabled people. Participants were found to be regular users of computers and mobile devices for a range of applications. They were interested in recommender apps for household items, computer software and apps that met their accessibility and other requirements. They showed greater concerns about controlling access to personal data of different types than this data being retained by the computer or mobile device. They were also willing to make tradeoffs to improve device performance

Distance Learning: New Opportunities for the Blind

Non

Accessibility and Usability of Search Engine Interfaces: Preliminary Testing

Due to the enormous amount of information on the Internet today, search engines have become an indispensable tool for finding specific, appropriate information. Therefore, it is essential for search engines to offer user interfaces that are easy to use and accessible to all. In this study we describe the initial steps of a project aimed at evaluating the accessibility and usability of several popular search tools. The analysis is centered on two user categories: sighted and blind users. With this goal in mind, we collected individual feedback in order to determine whether it is possible to improve interface design

Accessibility and Usability of Search Engine User interfaces

Due to the enormous amount of information on the Internet today, search engines have become indispensable for finding specific and appropriate information. If we consider the user\u27s task, two main search engine components are equally important to carry out a successful search: (I) the search process, which seeks the requested information and orders the results by relevance; and (II) the user interface, where the user types the query keywords and the search results are shown. Since individuals interact with the search tool to set up a search task and explore the results, it is essential that user interfaces be easy to use and accessible to all; this is particularly important for sightless users who, interacting via screen reader, perceive the page contents very differently and experience a much longer search time. In this study we describe a research project aimed at evaluating the accessibility and usability of several popular search tools available on the Web, in order to understand their limitations/drawbacks and propose improvements. By means of automatic checking, gathering user feedback, and a screen reader, we were able to identify the main accessibility and usability problems. We then defined and proposed specific guidelines for improving search engine user interface design. Finally, by applying these directives to the UIs of Google, a search engine which is commonly considered accessible and easy to use, we were able to demonstrate that accessibility can be greatly improved while the interface maintains the same visual appeal. Specifically, we modified the Google interfaces by adding specific "hidden features" that greatly improve navigation and the search activity via screen reader, but do not affect the navigation of sighted users

Providing Web Accessibility for the Visually Impaired

Web accessibility means ensuring that online content, services or applications can be accessed and used by everyone, including those with special needs. Usability, on the other hand, is a multidimensional concept that depends on the application, the user context and on the goal itself, and its aim is to provide a fully satisfactory user experience. Although closely related, accessibility and usability are frequently addressed as two separate issues. Nevertheless, it is very important to apply them synergistically from the earliest phases of design in order to guarantee satisfactory interaction for users with disabilities

Serious games, education and inclusion for disabled people editorial

No abstract available

Structured Audio Podcasts via Web Text-to-Speech System

Audio podcasting is increasingly present in the educational field and is especially appreciated as an ubiquitous/pervasive tool (?anywhere, anytime, at any pace?) for acquiring or expanding knowledge. We designed and implemented a Web-based Text To Speech (TTS) system for automatic generation of a set of structured audio podcasts from a single text document. The system receives a document in input (doc, rtf, or txt), and in output provides a set of audio files that reflect the document?s internal structure (one mp3 file for each document section), ready to be downloaded on portable mp3 players. Structured audio files are useful for everyone but are especially appreciated by blind users, who must explore content audially. Fully accessible for the blind, our system offers WAI-ARIA-based Web interfaces for easy navigation and interaction via screen reader and voice synthesizer, and produces a set of accessible audio files for Rockbox mp3 players (mp3 and talk files), allowing blind users to also listen to naturally spoken file names (instead of their spelled-out strings). In this demo, we will show how the system works when a user interacts via screen reader and voice synthesizer, showing the interaction with both our Web-based system and with an mp3 player

Serious games for the rehabilitation of disabled people: results of a multilingual survey

The paper reports the results of an original mixed-methods survey on the experiences and attitudes of disabled people to digital games in rehabilitation. Serious games are very widely used, but there is currently no research from the perspective of disabled people on their use in rehabilitation. A majority of participants were found to consider games in rehabilitation useful or very useful, with particular interest in games with a camera and sensors. Some statistically significant differences were found between the experiences and attitudes of blind and other disabled people and under and over 40s, but the results were found to be male-female gender independent. Several theories of technology use were applied to interpret the findings. The results were used to provide recommendations for the development and implementation of serious games in rehabilitation and suggestions for further work

Conceptual framework: How to engineer online trust for disabled users

The Internet has penetrated our lives, becoming an indispensable tool for social, business and personal growth. Thanks to the Web, users can easily carry out many tasks that were previously difficult. Differently-abled persons need to have the same opportunities as everyone else, so accessibility and usability must be included in the design of all Web resources, applications and services. To be extensively applicable, accessibility and usability guidelines should be delivered as simple design features. In previous studies some conceptual frameworks have been introduced with this aim. However, the specific applicative environment such as trustworthy e-commerce services, may offer ad hoc challenges. In this paper, we propose some guidelines to extend the design of usability conceptual frameworks in order to promote trust in e-commerce websites for people with visual disabilities. © 2009 IEEE

Search engine UIs: remote usability testing with blind persons

This paper describes a remote usability testing which was the final phase of a research project aimed at improving usability of web search tools for blind users who interact via screen reader and voice synthesizer. The testing aimed to evaluate a new implementation of Google user interfaces - according to a set of criteria previously proposed specifically for search engine user interfaces - for the simple search and the result exploration. To prepare the environment for the remote testing we needed to re-implement the original Google interfaces, using Google APIs, PERL programming and XSLT transformations. The results of the testing highlight how Google interfaces, although accessible, may be further improved in order to simplify the interaction for the sightless. In this article, first an overview of the project is introduced; then we discuss the design and implementation of the UIs. Finally, we describe in detail the usability testing which involved 12 totally blind persons