Accessibility and Interaction

Ing. Roberto Tedesco

AA 2018-2019

Politecnico di Milano

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Disabilities

l Motorl Sensoriall Cognitivel Seizure disorders (caused by strobing, flickering, or

flashing effects)l Ageing

l Anyway, keep in mind that each person is unique and assistive solutions must be personalized!

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Motor Disabilities

l Traumatic Injuries– Spinal cord injury (paraplegia / quadriplegia)

l Arms+legs (quadriplegia)

à Difficulties in using mouse and keyboard

– Loss or damage of upper limb(s)l Especially if affects both limbs à Difficulties in using mouse and keyboard

l Diseases and Congenital Conditions– Cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, spina

bifida, ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)l Decreased muscle control, arm movements often jerky and unpredictable

à Difficulties in using a mouse effectivelyà Difficulties in using a keyboard

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Motor Disabilities

l Diseases and Congenital Conditions– Arthritis

l Occurs most often in eldersà Many people with arthritis are able to use keyboard and mouseà They do not always have the fine motor control sufficient to click

on small links

– Parkinson's disease, essential tremorl Uncontrollable tremors and/or rigidity in the musclesl Sometimes the voice is affected as wellà May have difficulties in using mouse and keyboard

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Sensorial Disabilitiesl Visual

– Blindnessl Complete lack of visionà Cannot see the screenà Cannot use a mouseà Can (and must) use a keyboard

– Low visionl Several different diseases (macular degeneration, glaucoma, retinopathy,

cataract)à Can’t see small, low-contrast objects on the screenà May have difficulties using mouse (and keyboard)

– Color-blindnessl Several diseases affecting color vision

l Auditory– Partial or complete deafness

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Cognitive Disabilitiesl The concept of cognitive disabilities is extremely broad l Main categories

– Memory (working / short term / long term)– Problem-solving (managing uncertainty)– Visual comprehension

l Individuals may recognize the fact that there are objects on a web page, but may not be able to identify the objects

– SpLD: dyslexia, dysgraphia, disorthography, dyscalculia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

– People needing iconic language– Autism– Asperger Syndrome– Mental retardation

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Accessibility & Design for All

l Usual approach– Design for persons with “average” capabilities– Add solutions specifically thought for persons with

disabilityl The “design for all” approach:

– Multimodal, general solution– Make the application easy, efficient and pleasant to

use, to all users– Rationale: good design choices make life easier to all

users!– Or… usability & accessibility come together!

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Design for All: principles

l Equitable use: the system is usable and effective to all, and does not depend on users’ abilities or preferences

l Flexibility in use: the systems adapts to a broad variety of preferences and user abilities

l Simple and intuitive usel Perceptible information: information is perceptible to at

least one of users’ sensesl Tolerance for error: error prevention and recoveryl Low physical effort: comfortable to usel Size and space for approach and use: appropriate sizes

and space

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Design for All

l Pros– No multiple versions to design, implement, and

maintain– Side effect: a cleaner UI– No “isolated islands” for users with special needs

l Cons– Sometime it is not possible– Requires more design time

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Accessibility and ICT

1. Accessing standard UIs– Special I/O devices– Software facilitating interaction

2. Re-thinking the UI– Functions and complexity– Appearance and structure– Navigation

3. Making contents accessible– Electronic publishing– Transcoding– Conceptual density– Linguistic structure and complexity– Facilitating comprehension

ACCESSING STANDARD UI’sPart 1

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Special I/O Devices

l Make it possible for users with special needs to use a keyboard and a pointer

l Most of the following devices “emulate” a keyboard– For that reason, accessible UIs should be fully

usable with a keyboard-only setting

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Special I/O Devicesl Motor

– Head wands and mouth sticks– Special keyboards– Buttons– Residual movements

l Cognitive– Iconic-language devices– Pens

l Sensorial– Video magnifiers and special scanners– Refreshable braille displays– Assistive listening devices13

Head wands and mouth sticks

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http://assisttech.info/equipment/eq_alt_input.htmhttp://www.rehabmart.com

l Permit to use a keyboardl Permit to point (on a touch screen)

Special Keyboards

l Large-key keyboardsl Keyboards with masksl Programmable keypads

15http://www.tiflosystem.it/

Trackballs, Joysticks, and Buttons

l Trackballsl Joysticksl Single button

16http://www.tiflosystem.it/

Sensors

l Triggersl Grasp

17http://www.tiflosystem.it/

Residual movements

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l Eye-trackingl Eye-blinkingl Head movementsl Sip-and-puff sensor

http://www.tiflosystem.it/

Iconic languages

l For people with cognitive disabilities

19http://www.tiflosystem.it/

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l IrisPen– A handheld scanner with OCR

l IrisNotes– Captures handwritten notes, with OCR

l LiveScribe– Records what the user hears and writes

l Useful for people with SpLD

http://www.irislink.com/http://www.livescribe.com/en-us

Pens

Video magnifiers and special scanners

l Video magnifiersl Scanners with TTS

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http://www.tiflosystem.it/

Refreshable braille displays

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http://www.anasitalia.orghttp://www.tiflosystem.it/

l Used with screen readersl braille instead of TTS

Hearing aids & cochlear implants

l Hearing aids. Devices designed to improve hearing, making sound louder; two typologies:– External, behind the ear aids– Receiver in the canal: the receiver is the speaker

which sends sound into the earl Cochlear implant. A surgically implanted device that

replaces the function of the damaged inner ear– Cochlear implants do the work of damaged parts of

the inner ear (cochlea) to provide sound signals to the brain23

Hearing aids & cochlear implants

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external internal

http://www.ktbs.com/story/30605261/whats-going-around-first-bilateral-cochlear-implant-at-lsuhsc-avoid-burns-from-deep-fried-turkey

http://hearingaidbuyertoday.com/facts-cost-hearing-aids/

http://www.oticon.ca/support/how

-to/clean-hearing-aid/

Assistive listening devices (ALD)l Hearing loop (or induction loop) systemsl Sound creates an electromagnetic field l Picked up directly by a hearing loop receiverl Composed of:

– A sound source, such as microphone, TV, telephone– An amplifier– A thin loop of wire that encircles a room or branches

out beneath carpeting– A wireless receiver (telecoil) that is built into many

hearing aids and cochlear implantsl Suitable for conferences; expensive25

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/assistive-devices-people-hearing-voice-speech-or-language-disorders

Assistive listening devices (ALD)l FM systems use radio signals to transmit amplified

soundsl Often used in classrooms

– The instructor wears a small microphone connected to a transmitter

– The student wears the receiver, which is tuned to a specific frequency, or channel

l People who have a telecoil inside their hearing aid or cochlear implant:– May also wear a wire around the neck (a neckloop)– Or behind their aid or implant (a silhouette inductor) to

convert the signal into magnetic signals26

Assistive listening devices (ALD)

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http://www.ampetronic.co/How-do-loops-work

http://www.usnewsound.com/product/Device/2010/1215/189.html

Hearingloop

FMsystem

Assistive listening devices (ALD)l Infrared systems use infrared light to transmit

soundl A transmitter converts sound into light and

beams it to a receiver that is worn by a listenerl The receiver decodes the infrared signal back to

soundl As with FM systems, people with a telecoil may

also wear a neckloop or silhouette inductorl Bluetooth systems use Bluetooth for

connecting the neckloop to the sound source28

Assistive listening devices (ALD)

29http://www.loop-systems.co.uk/infra-red-systems/

Infraredsystem

Bluetoothsystem

Bluetooth

TxRx

Induction neckloop

Assistive listening devices (ALD)

l Personal amplifiers: useful in places in which the above systems are unavailable

l Or when watching TV, being outdoors, or traveling in a car

l These devices increase sound levels and reduce background noise for a listener

l Some have directional microphones that can be angled toward a speaker or other source of sound

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Assistive listening devices (ALD)

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http://www.harriscomm.com/comfort-audio-duett-new-personal-listener-with-earphone-headphone.html

Personalamplifier

Software facilitating interaction

l Motor– Scanning keyboards

l Cognitive– Virtual keyboards

l Sensorial– TTS and ASR– Accessibility toolbar– Magnifiers

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l Virtual keyboardsl Customizable layoutl Several interaction

modalities– Touch screen– Scanning keyboard– …

Virtual and scanning keyboards

33 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdEaeULKkLQ

TTS & ASR

l Text to Speech (TTS)– To read the UI: screen reader

l Example– To read the contents: High quality TTS

l Example

l Automatic speech recognition (ASR)– To control the UI – To insert contents (dictation)– Training is required– Results depend on the vocabulary used by the speaker

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Magnifiers

l To enlarge portions of the screen– Pointing magnifierhttp://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/proj/ptgmag

l To zoom in the screen– Apple ”CTRL-scroll” gesture

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Browser Accessibility Toolbar

l A browser plug-inl Modify the content of the page

– Colors, characters, layout, …– Remove CSS

36http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=1985http://firefox.cita.uiuc.edu/

RE-THINKING THE UIPart 2

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Ad-hoc UIs

l Reduce functionalities – Only “core” functionalities

l Adapt UI appearance & simplify UI structure – Enlarge widgets and text– Reduce information items– Use high contrast color scheme– …

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Ad-hoc UIs

l Simplify navigation – Reduce “click typologies”

(e.g., left/right click, double click, click-and-hold, …)– Reduce the “information depth”– …

l Ad-hoc UIs: only if really needed – Remember the “design for all” approach…

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Dynamic Adaptation

l Modify the UI according to some user profilel A possible user profile (the MAIS project):

– User informationl Personal information (name, age, gender, …)l Expertise (expertise and knowledge, where it can help in the

interaction with the system)l Role (e.g. “teacher”)l Activity (the log)

– User preferencesl Quantitative (e.g., min bandwidth = 1 Mbit/s)l Qualitative (e.g., preferred screen resolutions: HIGH)

– User abilitiesl The user “functioning”; e.g., the WHO ICF

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Miscellaneal Google Accessibility Scanner

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/google-releases-new-tool-to-scan-android-apps-for-accessibility-issues/

l Testing your (iOS) app with a wireless keyboard and Switch Controlhttp://www.mostgood.net/blog/2015/5/21/testing-your-app-with-switch-control

l Accessibility for the Machttps://developer.apple.com/accessibility/macos/

l Accessibility for Windows 10https://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windows10/

l Accessibility for Linuxhttps://opensource.com/life/15/8/accessibility-linux-blind-disabledhttps://wiki.gnome.org/Accessibilityhttps://accessibility.kde.org41

MAKING CONTENTS ACCESSIBLE

Part 3

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Contents

l Transcoding contents– ASR, high-quality TTS, iconic languages

l Simplifying the conceptual contents– E.g. do not show lists with many items

l Simplifying the linguistic structure and complexity– Text complexity evaluation– Then…

à reduce text lengthà reduce “information density” in text blocksà reduce syntactic complexity (simple sentences)à reduce lexical complexity (common words)

l Facilitating comprehension– Mental maps43

E-BOOKS: DAISY

l The DAISY Consortium is a global consortium of organizations

l Works towards creating the best way to read and publish

l Makes e-books accessible for everyone– Defining open accessible standards– Supporting the inclusive publishing ecosystem

around the world

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DAISY standards

l DAISY 3– Specifications for digital talking books (DTBs)– Supports refreshable braille displays

l EPUB 3– Standard (HTML 5-based) for e-books

– Extensions for accessibility (supersede DAISY 3)

l http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard

l http://www.daisy.org/daisy-epub-3-developments45

SOME USEFUL LINKSPart 4

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Standards, docs, software

l TRACE – http://trace.wisc.edu– Research center– Documentation– Free software

l RESNA – http://resna.org– Standards

l W3C-WAI – http://www.w3.org/WAI/– Standards for Web accessibility

l WebAIM – http://webaim.org– Documentation on Web accessibility– Free software for Web accessibility

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Databases

l EASTINhttp://www.eastin.eu/en-GB/searches/products/index

– Prototype for the European Assistive Network Information web site

– Searches in databases of assistive devices– Six languages supported

l Atis4all collaborative portalhttp://collaborativeportal.atis4all.eu/en-GB/default.aspx

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In Italy: service and research centers

l SIVA – Fondazione Pro Juventute Don Carlo Gnocchi – Milano - www.siva.it– Part of the The EASTIN portal– HW and SW assistive devices

l ASPHI – Bologna – www.asphi.it– ECDL /STEP /GRIL– The magazine / Handimatica

l AUSILIOTECA – Bologna – www.ausilioteca.orgl CNR – Genova – Istituto per le tecnologiie

didattiche- www.itd.cnr.it

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Italian resellers

l AUXILIA – www.auxilia.itl EASYLAB – www.easylab.itl TIFLOSYSTEM – www.tiflosystem.itl ANASTASIS – www.anastasis.itl HELPICARE – www.helpicare.itl LEONARDO - www.leonardoausili.coml ARS – www.ars-coop.itl QUALILIFE (Lugano) – www.qualilife.coml www.ausilionline.it