Raúl Miñón

Automatically generating tailored accessible user interfaces for ubiquitous services

Ambient Assisted Living environments provide support to people with disabilities and elderly people, usually at home. This concept can be extended to public spaces, where ubiquitous accessible services allow people with disabilities to access intelligent machines such as information kiosks. One of the key issues in achieving full accessibility is the instantaneous generation of an adapted accessible interface suited to the specific user that requests the service. In this paper we present the method used by the EGOKI interface generator to select the most suitable interaction resources and modalities for each user in the automatic creation of the interface. The validation of the interfaces generated for four different types of users is presented and discussed.

An approach to the integration of accessibility requirements into a user interface development method

Abstract It is a legal requirement in many countries to ensure accessibility for Web applications. Although there are numerous regulations and standards regarding accessibility in the development of user interfaces, accessibility is nevertheless quite difficult to achieve, let alone to maintain at a high level of quality throughout the development process. This difficulty is due to diverse factors including, but not limited to, the lack of proper development methods, authoring tools and accessibility training for user interface development professionals. In an attempt to offer a solution to these difficulties, this paper proposes a methodological approach for the integration of accessibility requirements into a user interface development method based on User Interface Description Language (UIDL) or, more specifically, on the USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language (UsiXML) framework. The proposed strategy involves the integration of accessibility requirements into design primitives of the user interface development method. This paper focuses on accessibility requirements related to navigation in the Task Model, Abstract User Interface Model and Transformation Model. The application of the approach shown for the SPA4USXML tool also includes a proof of concept and validation of the proposal. The study shows that accessibility requirements included at the design stage in the modelling of user interfaces can be systematized through mechanisms such as new transformation rules and the use of support tools such as SPA4USXML. As a result, the quality of accessibility can be guaranteed by taking advantage of developments in technologies based on User Interface Markup Languages such as UsiXML.

An environment for designing and sharing adaptation rules for accessible applications

In this work we present a design space for adaptation rules for applications accessible to people with special needs, and an environment supporting the sharing of such rules across various applications. The adaptation rules are classified according to the target user disabilities, as well as other relevant criteria useful to ease their integration in other design tools.

Supportive adaptive user interfaces inside and outside the home

This paper describes the extension of a previously developed architecture for an Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environment, called AmbienNet, to provide access to ubiquitous services. The former AAL system generates adaptive instructions to support elderly people at home. This extension includes an adaptive model-based user interface generator that was created for ubiquitous applications. This approach involves the extension of the supportive user interface from home supervision and support to allow access to ubiquitous applications outside the home. The present challenge is how to include adaptive supportive instructions for accessing ubiquitous services outside the home that are coherent with the previously designed home support system.

A graphical tool to create user interface models for ubiquitous interaction satisfying accessibility requirements

This paper describes a tool, called SPA4USXML, aimed at graphically creating instances of task models, abstract user interfaces and multimedia resource models. This tool is fed with descriptions of services provided by ubiquitous environments and web services. Its main goal is to assist service designers to create abstract specifications of the services for the Egoki adaptive system. Egoki automatically generates user interfaces adapted to the different needs and abilities of people with disabilities in order to provide access to services offered in ubiquitous environments. Therefore, SPA4USXML is intended to complement the Egoki system in order to provide a better user experience for disabled users and to enhance their autonomy and safety in their daily routines.

Integrating adaptation rules for people with special needs in model-based UI development process

Abstract The adaptation of user interfaces for people with special needs is a promising approach in order to enable their access to digital services. Model-based user interfaces provide a useful approach for this purpose since they allow tailoring final user interfaces with a high degree of flexibility. This paper describes a system called Adaptation Integration System aimed at providing Cameleon Reference Framework model-based tools with a mechanism to integrate adaptation rules in the development process. Thus, more accessible user-tailored interfaces can be automatically generated. The services provided by the system can be applied at both design time and runtime. At design time, a user interface can be tailored at any abstraction level in the development process. At runtime, changes in the context of use trigger the adaptation process. Adaptation rules are stored in a repository tagged with meta-information useful for the adaptation process, such as the granularity of the adaptations and the abstraction level. As case studies, two applications have been developed using the services provided by the system. One of them exploits the benefits at design time, whereas the other application is devoted to describe the adaptation process at runtime. The results obtained in these two scenarios demonstrate the viability and potential of the adaption integration system since even inexperienced designers may efficiently produce accessible user interfaces.

Extending In-Home User and Context Models to Provide Ubiquitous Adaptive Support Outside the Home

Ubiquitous Computing has proved to be an excellent way of providing technological support for the daily life of people within its range. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), which is largely based on Ubiquitous Computing, aims at tutoring and supervising elderly people and users with physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities in the performance of routine household activities. AAL’s main aim is to increase the autonomy of dependent people in their daily life by providing them with supportive instructions for everyday routines and warnings about home safety issues. This concept can be extended to public spaces, where ubiquitous accessible services allow people with disabilities to access location-dependent web services (providing maps, addresses, transport schedules, etc.) and local intelligent machines (such as information kiosks or ATMs). This approach allows existing knowledge about the users, their common activities, and their environment to be used to extend the in-home AAL concept to the support of common routines performed outside the home. This chapter surveys the modelling techniques used inside the home and discusses the methodologies required for their extension for out-of-home use, including interoperation and sharing of models.

Some issues regarding the design of adaptive interface generation systems

This paper describes the main issues related to the design of user adaptive interaction systems, in order to discuss their applicability to a specific domain: the automatic generation of accessible user interfaces for people with disabilities who make use of ubiquitous services. Advances in the domain of the accessible Web are especially interesting for this purpose. Nevertheless, even if several procedures are similar, there are specific features that require new approaches, such as the formal specification of the functionality of the interface that will be generated.

Conceptual Model for Automatic Generation of Context-Sensitive User-Tailored Interfaces

Ubiquitously available services can be inaccessible to people with physical, sensory or cognitive restrictions. These users require interfaces tailored to their characteristics and needs. In addition, their interaction context should also be considered. The automatic generation of accessible user interfaces deals with all these issues. The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual model for the automatic generation of tailored user interfaces in the context of ubiquitous applications. The model describes the components and the transformations required for providing accessible user-tailored interfaces. It has been successfully applied in several practical approaches, resulting in a coherent and compatible design of each phase of the process.