Evangelos Bekiaris

The evolving global public inclusive infrastructure (GPII)

We are facing a perfect storm where, just as access to ICT is becoming mandatory for meaningful participation, independence, and self sustenance, we find that we not only are nowhere near providing access to everyone who needs it, but we are actually losing ground due to reasons such as technical proliferation across platforms, increasing product churn (breaking existing solutions), decreasing social resources to address it, and an inability to effectively serve the tails of these populations because of the higher cost to do so. At the same time the incidence of disabilities is increasing as our population ages. This paper describes the Cloud4all and Prosperity4All projects and progress in building the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure, an infrastructure based on cloud, web and platform technologies that can increase dissemination and international localization while lowering the cost to develop, deploy, market, and support a broad range of access solutions.

Specification of information needs for the development of a mobile communication platform to support mobility of people with functional limitations

Opportunities for people with functional limitations are increasing. ICT provides a number of possibilities to receive care, to travel, to work, to educate oneself, to inform oneself and to meet other people. In this paper, the methodology for defining user requirements for supporting people with functional limitations through ICT (the ASK-It Concept) is presented. The methodology covers various domains. A case example as an illustration of the process is used: a communication platform to support social relations and communities. The methodology is built upon the definition of user groups, the elaboration and implementation of relevant action and activity theory principles, and is successively developed with the content modelling procedure, in order to provide a formal description of user information needs in a computer understandable and interoperable format.

Toward a client-centred approach to fitness-to-drive assessment of elderly drivers

Demographic changes increase the need for fair and valid fitness-to-drive assessment in older drivers. In a self-report survey, 473 older drivers stratified by age (55–64, 65–74, >74 years) were asked about their driving habits, crash history, compensatory driver behaviour, and attitude towards age-based reassessment. The results showed an increase in the proportions of subjects reporting crash involvement and the subjects reporting full legal responsibility for the latest crash in older age groups. The reported use of different compensatory strategies and adaptation techniques was also higher in the older age groups. Medical fitness-to-drive screenings are not able to deal with the complexity of this paradoxical finding, because medical diagnoses do not take into account adaptation and compensation in older drivers. Age-based reassessments limited to medical screenings therefore carry an increased likelihood of false positive classifications that would unnecessarily reduce the quality of life of sufficiently safe older drivers. This risk could, however, be reduced by a client-centred approach focused on practical fitness-to-drive, providing older drivers with the opportunity to show whether they are able to cope with functional deficits in more realistic driving settings. Such an approach is in line with theoretical occupational therapy foundations.

Tailored versus Prioritized Configuration towards Accessibility – A Study on Weighted Preferences

We present the results of a user study on human factors towards personalization and accessibility which was conducted with 97 participants (cognitive impaired, dyslexic, low digital literacy, visual impaired and elderly). Amongst others, the presented results gave insights on user weightings of requirements as well as on difficulties in customizing accessibility features of ICT products.

Multimedia Software Training Tool (MSTT) for Persons with Visual and Mobile Impairments in Four Languages

This paper presents an innovative, user-friendly multimedia software tool for the training of persons with visual and mobile impairments, to be developed within the TELL-IT European research program. This multimedia software training tool (MSTT) refers to all those persons who are visually and mobility disabled and wish to be trained in order to be employed as help-desk services providers. The MSTT will provide them all the necessary knowledge and training to prepare them for their sufficient tasks performance. The MSTT is a modular training tool, which will be developed in two modes: one for distant, self-learning and another for on-the-job guided training. Both will be translated in four (4) languages (English, French, Greek, Spanish). For both modes, two types of software packages will be developed, one for training and one for testing. It will interface the necessary software and hardware aids, in order to be usable by people with mobility and/or visual impairments.