Anita H. M. Cremers

Attuning speech-enabled interfaces to user and context for inclusive design: technology, methodology and practice

This paper presents a methodology to apply speech technology for compensating sensory, motor, cognitive and affective usage difficulties. It distinguishes (1) an analysis of accessibility and technological issues for the identification of context-dependent user needs and corresponding opportunities to include speech in multimodal user interfaces, and (2) an iterative generate-and-test process to refine the interface prototype and its design rationale. Best practices show that such inclusion of speech technology, although still imperfect in itself, can enhance both the functional and affective information and communication technology-experiences of specific user groups, such as persons with reading difficulties, hearing-impaired, intellectually disabled, children and older adults.

Personalisation Meets Accessibility: Towards the Design of Individual User Interfaces for All

Current accessibility guidelines are composed to allow users with special needs to more easily and comfortably access the Internet. However, most of the guidelines are written with both a ‘standard’ device and a ‘standard’ use context in mind, which is the user sitting in front of a desktop computer, in a non-mobile situation at home or at work. This approach does not take into account the likely possibility that an individual who happens to have a certain limitation may also have other personal needs, a certain type of behaviour or activities that require a specific type of support. In this position paper, we plead for a more fundamental approach of dealing with Internet accessibility for people with special needs. We claim that a person with a special need does not differ from a ‘regular’ individual, in the sense that they are both users who are trying to accomplish a certain task in a certain use context using a certain device, who may have their own personal requirements for support. One could state that in this way accessibility and personalisation are intertwined to result in an optimal, individual user experience, thereby making optimal use of technologies that are currently available ((dedicated) devices, user interface technologies and assistive technologies).

Inclusive design: bridging theory and practice

Large groups in society lack the necessary skills to be sufficiently self-reliant and are in need of personal assistance. These groups could be supported by information and information technology (ICT), but only if this technology is designed to fit their (cognitive) abilities. Inclusive design theory and methods have already been developed in research contexts, but there is still a gap between theory and practice. There is a need for a practical aid, that helps to create awareness of inclusive design among ICT developers, and offers easy-to-use information and tools to actually apply the methods for diverse target groups. This paper describes the first steps taken towards an inclusive design toolbox for developing ICT applications that offer cognitive support for self-reliance. Dutch ICT companies were interviewed and participated in a co-design workshop, leading to a number of initial needs, user requirements, and an on-line community, that form input for further development of the toolbox.

User requirement analysis of social conventions learning applications for non-natives and low-literates

Learning and acting on social conventions is problematic for low-literates and non-natives, causing problems with societal participation and citizenship. Using the Situated Cognitive Engineering method, requirements for the design of social conventions learning software are derived from demographic information, adult learning frameworks and ICT learning principles. Evaluating a sample of existing Dutch social conventions learning applications on these requirements shows that none of them meet all posed criteria. Finally, Virtual Reality is suggested as a possible future technology improvement.

Multimodal Reference to Objects: An Empirical Approach

In this chapter we report on an investigation into the principles underlying the choice of a particular referential expression to refer to an object located in a domain to which both participants in the dialogue have multimodal access. Our approach is based on the assumption that participants try to use as little effort as possible when referring to objects. This assumption is operationalized in two factors, namely the focus of attention and a particular choice of features to be included in a referential expression. We claim that both factors help in reducing effort needed to, on the one hand, refer to an object and, on the other hand, to identify it. As a result of the focus of attention the number of potential target objects (i.e., the object the speaker intends to refer to) is reduced. The choice of a specific type of feature determines the number of objects that have to be identified in order to be able to understand the referential expression. An empirical study was conducted in which pairs of participants cooperatively carried out a simple block-building task, and the results provided empirical evidence that supported the aforementioned claims. Especially the focus of attention turned out to play an important role in reducing the total effort.

Low-literates’ support needs for societal participation learning : Empirical grounding of theory- and model-based design

Specialized learning support software can address the low societal participation of low-literate Dutch citizens. We use the situated Cognitive Engineering method to iteratively create a design specification for the envisioned system VESSEL: a Virtual Environment to Support the Societal participation Education of Low-literates. An initial high-level specification for this system is refined by incorporating the societal participation experiences of low-literate citizens into the design. In two series of user studies, the participant workshop and cultural probe methods were used with 23 low-literate participants. The Grounded Theory method was used to process the rich user data from these studies into the Societal Participation Experience of Low-Literates (SPELL) model. Using this experience model, the existing VESSEL specification was refined: requirements were empirically situated in the daily practice of low-literate societal participation, and new claims were written to explicate the learning effectiveness of the proposed VESSEL system. In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive, theoretically and empirically grounded set of requirements and claims for the proposed VESSEL system, as well as the underlying SPELL model, which captures the societal participation experiences of low-literates citizens. The research methods used in this study are shown to be effective for requirements engineering with low-literate users.