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Firefixia: an accessibility web browser customization toolbar for people with dyslexia

People with dyslexia often face difficulties on consuming written content at the Web. This occurs mainly because websites designs do not consider the barriers faced by them, since dyslexia is not taken into account as often as other functional limitations. Guidelines for designing accessible Web pages are being consolidated and studied. Meanwhile, people with dyslexia face barriers and develop workarounds to overcome these difficulties. This work presents a customization toolbar called Firefixia, especially designed to support people with dyslexia to adapt the presentation of Web content according to their preferences. Firefixia was tested by 4 participants with diagnosed dyslexia. The participants evaluated and provided us feedback regarding the toolbar most/least useful features. From the presented results, one expects to highlight the need for end-user customization features that are easy to access, easy to use, and easy to explore. Participants reported that the most useful customization features are the text size, the text alignment, and the link color. Finally, this work indicates promising directions for end-user customization tools such as Firefixia.

An alternative and smarter route planner for wheelchair users: Exploring open data

In this paper we describe a bottom-up approach to integrate GIS maps (endorsed by discrete features, such as points, lines, polygons), in order to develop a route planner for wheelchair users. We integrate public available data with a novel model for route planning, based on sidewalks, crosswalks and curb ramps, as opposed to traditional street-based approaches. We show that our sidewalk-based model is more suitable than available planning routes under mobility constraints, using a case study in Curitiba, Brazil.

Shortcut suggestion based on collaborative user feedback for suitable wheelchair route planning

Traditionally, available route planners suggest paths in terms of streets, although, sidewalks of a same street may present different accessibility conditions for wheelchair users. To address this problem, we describe in this paper a sidewalk-based model for wheelchair route planning. The model is a graph in which vertices are corners that makeup city blocks and edges are sidewalks or pedestrian crossings. Namely, we automatically build a coarse graph from geographic information system maps (endorsed by discrete features, such as points, lines, polygons). Then, based on user feedback, the graph model is refined so as to indicate the wheelchair-accessible sidewalks and crosswalks. To evaluate our model we considered a neighborhood in a Brazilian city. However, the user feedback have shown severe issues to the city connectivity, mainly due to the lack of curb ramps. We show that such issues can be reduced by adding k shortcut edges, suggested by a greedy algorithm, in a refined graph, so as to minimize the weighted average shortest path distance over all pairs of vertices.

Games Accessibility for Deaf People: Evaluating Integrated Guidelines

The lack of accessibility in digital games imposes barriers for people with disabilities. Currently there is not a standardized set of guidelines however there are researches that consisted in integrating guidelines disperse in several sources as, for example, the integrated set of guidelines for games accessibility for deaf people proposed by Waki, Fujiyoshi and Almeida. In this study we propose and conduct a process for evaluating that set of integrated guidelines that is composed of two complementary evaluation techniques that articulates predictive evaluations with prospective game developers and workshops with deaf gamers. The results provided us with information: (a) on whether the set of integrated guidelines is sufficient for determining accessibility of digital games; and (b) for refining the set of integrated guidelines.

A Method for Analyzing Mobility Issues for People with Physical Disabilities in the Context of Developing Countries.

In this paper, we propose a method based on studies available in the literature and in the norms that regulate urban accessibility to analyze the problems of urban mobility faced by people with physical disabilities in cities of developing countries. To performing this analysis, we carried out a series of activities through participatory workshops and analysis of route services involving 29 people with physical disabilities or their companions. The results revealed some of the main problems of accessibility found in cities, new ways for tracing routes in map applications, considering accessibility aspects.

A Participatory Method for Multidimensional Analysis and Proposing Improvements in Collaborative Systems

The difficulty of evaluating collaborative systems is a historical challenge, since the multiple dimensions of collaboration are considered success factors for the system, and these factors go beyond individual interaction. Adopting the fundamentals of Participatory Design, this paper presents a multidimensional method for evaluating and proposing improvements on collaborative systems. The method involves three phases: (1) a presential briefing phase; (2) a non-presential observation phase; and (3) a Future Workshop phase. Instances of the proposed method seek to involve users as co-designers, making informed and relevant decisions about the future of a system which they could learn and use. This paper also presents the results of a preliminary evaluation, which consists in an instance of the method: evaluating and proposing improvements on a groupware prototype. The instance is compared to a traditional groupware evaluation method, exposing that the instance, not only identified similar collaboration-related issues, but also identified issues that were not identified by the inspection. During the experiment, participants informed us about issues experienced while collaborating and how they were perceived, and elicited possible futures in which the system would have more value to their objectives.

A Collaborative System for Suitable Wheelchair Route Planning

Route planning is a challenging problem for urban computing that usually involves the processing of a huge amount of data and collaborative user feedback. Traditionally, route planning services are street-based, that is, even paths for a pedestrian are suggested in terms of streets. However, such models are not suitable for users with certain disabilities. To address this problem, we have performed a requirement analysis with a group of wheelchair-users and their companions to understand their urban mobility experience. Given that perspective, we describe in this article a sidewalk-based model to accommodate the needs for a wheelchair route planning service. The model is mathematically defined as a graph, where the vertices are the city block corners and the edges are the sidewalks or crosswalks. The edge costs are derived from important accessibility features, such as distance, path inclination, and existence and maintenance conditions of curb ramps, crosswalks, and sidewalks. The model has been designed so that user feedback is considered to help updating the model when accessibility issues are detected, by wheelchair-users and companions, or solved, by the department of city planning. We also present a route planning algorithm that provides a set of alternative routes based on accessibility conditions, and a shortcut recommender algorithm to support accessibility-related decision making by the department of city planning. Experiments, by using PgRouting and PostGIS with open data, are reported for a Brazilian city neighborhood to validate the model and the route planning service.

Writing Towards Promoting the Empowerment of Persons With Disabilities in Digital Inclusion Texts

Writing technical texts that promote the empowerment of persons with disabilities is an important step towards the social inclusion of persons with diverse needs and conditions. However, few Computer Science events and journals present guidelines for writing about them - even those whose topics of interest involve persons with disabilities - and those that present guidelines often are limited to the adjustment of terminology or digital document accessibility. We review current and emergent practices of writing technical texts about digital accessibility and inclusion of persons who use accessibility resources, and we propose means to direct technical communication towards the promotion of empowerment when writing about persons with disabilities, reviewing not only terminology and document accessibility, but also approaches, and concepts, for user involvement, as well as the creation of narratives that are aware of the users personal power. We expect this paper to provide directions for technical communicators on writing texts that are more aligned with the fact that each person has power to make a change on their own lives, and that artifacts can be used as means for furthering these choices and enabling persons towards their own objectives.

Is Uber “Wild”? A Study of a Car Sharing Product-Service System (PSS) Under the Perspective of Cognition in the Wild

This article presents the relation between concepts of Product-Service Systems (PSS) and the approach of cognition in the wild. It presents theoretical basis with literature review obtained in initial bibliometric research. Later a study of the Uber model is shown, viewed as an example of car sharing and PSS, to compare the design and operation of the model with the guidelines of the cognition in the wild approach. The results show that despite the Uber model was created based on some characteristics of the “wild turn”, the later stages of its implementation and use do not show the same. We conclude that Uber, as well as other PSS and car sharing models, could focus more on wild cognition to improve the experience of its members.

A Smarter Sidewalk-Based Route Planner for Wheelchair Users: An Approach with Open Data

In this chapter we describe an approach to integrate GIS maps (endorsed by discrete features, such as points, lines, polygons), in order to develop a route planner for wheelchair users. We integrate public available data and an approach with free software with a novel model for route planning, based on sidewalks, crosswalks and curb ramps, as opposed to traditional street-based approaches. We show that our sidewalk-based model is more suitable than available route planning services under mobility constraints, using a case study in Curitiba, Brazil.