5. Assessing The Accessibility Of User Interfaces For All Ages

Session 6d, 20 May 2010 IST-Africa 2010 Copyright 2010 OASIS-project.org

Assessing The Accessibility Of UI For All Ages

Karel Van Isacker

Marie Curie Association

Bulgaria


Some facts

• Direct linkage– Growing size older population 55+

• Woldwide, Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA): 1990-2025 an expected increase of 200% to 300% in their elderly population

– Increasing number of disabilities• Not everywhere at same rate, SSA at approx. 10%

Projected number

of persons aged 65

and over expressed as

a percentage of the

projected number of

persons aged between

15 and 64


Research Objectives

• Important aim– Consider accessible user interfaces (UI)

from the very beginning

• With older-age, ageing-related impairments including vision and hearing decline, physical disabilities and cognitive declines.

– Need for multimodal user interfaces

• Ageing has its impact on the need for accessible ICT, whether for the workplace or for home that address ageing related impairments.

– Using a variety of interaction technologies

– Assessment through tools developed by ACCESSIBLE project


Applied User Interface Guide

• Applied for all service developments– Desktop, mobile or smartphone implementations.

• Established accessible UIs to assessed by end-users– Older people with a wide range of disabilities and activity degree,

related to old age or not– Pilots in Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, the UK

• Designers and developers assess developed user interfaces– Software that simulates a wide variety of disabilities– Assessment tools that verify e.g. JavaTM interfaces– Both developed by ACCESSIBLE project.


Why this User Interface Guide?

• Specific physical and cognitive changes occur with age– Vision: most common source of difficulty for

seniors using the web; acuity, contrast discriminations and colour perception all affected when ageing.

– Dexterity: problematic, especially in the usage of the mouse and keyboard.

– Cognitive: Impact on desktop usage overall, if only in needing a longer time to get grip of applications or understanding certain interfaces.

– Hearing: increasing number of multimedia that is being embedded in e.g. Rich Internet Applications.


Major Outcomes/Results

• OASIS will deploy 10 services:– Independent living applications

• Nutritional advisor

• Activity coach

• Brain and skills trainer

• Social communities platform

• Health monitoring

• Environmental control

– Autonomous Mobility and Smart Workplaces Applications

• Transport information services

• Route guidance

• Personal mobility

• Smart workplaces

•Follows specific guidelines

•Arrangement (multimodal) user interface elements•Functionality of each element•Colour codes to be applied


OASIS video

•Available online (www.oasis-project.eu)•Subtitled in English, French, …


Major Outcomes/Results

• Gesture based interaction – optical gesture recognition

• Multitouch• Gesture based

interaction- Accelerometer

• Tangible user interfaces• Audio supported

interaction• JavaTM supported

interaction


Does not stop at development…

• Provision of fully accessible e-learning for end-users– Usage of ATutor (www.atutor.ca)


Accessible learning

• Below are some of the accessibility features that are addressing in particular the needs of older users:– Keyboard accessibility, thus allowing limited usage of the mouse.– Adjustable font size.– Use of <label> tags to increase clickable surfaces in forms, menu

tabs, etc.– Consistent navigation (only exception is the chat functionality –which

refreshes text at certain intervals controllable by the user- so as to allow screen reader users to easily participate in a chat session without having to go to all menus).

• ATutor supports accessibility in terms of following standards:– W3C WCAG 1.0, W3C WCAG 2.0, W3C ATAG 2.0, US Section 508,

Italy Stanca Act, IMS AccessForAll 2.0 draft, ISO FDIS 24751


Platform possibilities

• Course module– Course content and associated tests– 3 profiles: administrator, tutor, student

• Course tools– Mailbox– Chat– Forum– Glossary– File storage– FAQ– Links– Polls– Test and surveys– Sitemap– Members directory

• Course management• Member management• Course enrollment• Management of course

content and associated material

• Multilingual support• English, Spanish, Italian• More can be added


Identified business benefits and barriers

• Positive ageing has become a buzzword• Active living among older people (with a wide range of health,

functional ability, disability, psychology, ethnicity and socioeconomic factors)

• Governments worried about impending age crisis (ageing population combined with dropping fertility rates)

• But also: untapped opportunity• Older people encouraged to remain active for a longer time, and

remain as independent as possible in daily life.

• Main barrier• Provided services and technologies remain very expensive• Many not enough supported by local governments (and their

respective health insurance systems)• Older people in general not aware of the social and functional

benefits provided by technology


Conclusion and outlook

• OASIS at the crossroad between new technologies and an ageing population that is to some extent reluctant to embark in new ICT territory.– Offered services as intuitive as possible in their usage, taking into

account the limitations that arise with ageing.

• Piloting will identify the gaps and these will be implemented into the final OASIS services.

• More info:– www.oasis-project.eu– Mail us at: [email protected]

Forthcoming events …


Forthcoming events

• ACCESSIBLE 1st Workshop in collaboration with ICCHP 2010 conference– FP7 project ACCESSIBLE: Accessibility Assessment

Simulation Environment for New Applications Design and Development - assess accessibility, support standards, improve life

– Vienna, Austria, 13 July 2010, in the context of the ICCHP pre-conference in Vienna.

– www.accessible-project.eu


Forthcoming events

• 2nd Pan-European Workshop/User Forum and the 1st International AEGIS Conference entitled “Access for All in the desktop, web and mobile field: an end-user and developer perspective”– FP7 project ÆGIS: Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork,

Infrastructure, Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards

– Seville, Spain, 6-7-8 October 2010 respectively– Important dates

• Abstracts submission deadline: 28th May 2010• Notification of abstracts acceptance: 14th June 2010• Paper submission deadline: 9th July 2010• Notification of acceptance and outcome of review : 23rd July 2010• Final camera ready papers: 31st August 2010

– www.aegis-project.eu

5. Assessing The Accessibility Of User Interfaces For All Ages

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