Thais Castro

The Process of Inclusive Design

Re-thinking the process of designing inclusive systems may help to identify the potential for re-use and interoperability of developed systems. Based on existing models of system engineering and project management, a process model for inclusive design as well as consequences for its practical application are presented.

Music Spectrum: A Music Immersion Virtual Environment for Children with Autism

Abstract This article reports on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), virtual environments and music therapy, defining and prototyping a virtual environment for assisting children in ASD cope with social situation through music activities. Music Spectrum help the development of communication skills, imagination and social interaction of children with ASD, which is a complex set of social unrest, marked by impaired social interaction, communication and restricted or stereotyped patterns of behaviors and interests. As virtual environments simulate real situations, children can experience overcoming their difficulties in interaction and communication in a more quiet and controlled environment before they are exposed to similar social tasks. Our choice for music is based several parents’ testimony about their children preferences and ways they use to regulate and organize themselves.

An application of mobility aids for the visually impaired

This article presents an exploratory case study with a mobile application devised to promote social inclusion of visually impaired people through collaborative mapping considering changes in the local environment. General strategies and technological resources used in tools like this provide greater independence and social inclusion for people with disabilities. Test results suggest that this application can support and expand communication and mobility in physical spaces such as schools, public institutions and the community at large.

Inspeção Semiótica do ColabWeb: Proposta de Adaptações para o Contexto da Aprendizagem de Programação

Este trabalho inaugura uma linha de pesquisa qualitativa aplicada ao contexto da aprendizagem de programacao atraves da avaliacao de groupware utilizando um metodo de inspecao de software baseado em semiotica. Para isso, inicia-se com a descricao do metodo utilizado, seguido pela inspecao propriamente dita, contendo as reflexoes referentes a cada etapa. Ao final, discute-se sobre os problemas encontrados com respeito a comunicabilidade do software, propondo tambem adaptacoes para que seja mais bem utilizado pelos usuarios finais, neste caso alunos.

Socialization of People with Autism Through Social Networks

People with autism spectrum disorder have different levels of impairment regarding to communication, interaction, and imagination - three social skills necessary to engage in face-to-face interaction. One way to possibly overcome these inabilities is to seek for online communities where they can express themselves freely without being judged for their appearance or difficulty of eye gazing and talking conventionally. Although there are other implications to consider, as the ones related to online security or bullying, there are social skills which could be better learnt through these communities. In this paper we review this relatively new way of social organization and we discuss the current gains and possible prospects.

Collaborative Music Composition Based on Sonic Interaction Design

This work proposes a way to create sonic interaction through collaborative composition of spatialized sounds in real time, based on SID (sound interaction design). There is no centralizing figure for the sound designer, and each person may begin a sonic interaction spontaneous and independently, or join an ongoing interaction. Therefore, each person is responsible for the result of his own interaction. Every movement a person makes within the reach of the determined space, the sound is captured and processed and then externalized as feedback in the multichannel sound system, perceived as a unified sound. The concepts and app designed for sonic interaction discussed in this work is intended for use in multidisciplinary contexts, raising important technical challenges. We have devised a design process resulting in four different prototypes, attending to different perspectives. Each prototype had its own experiment.

Watch or Immerse?: Redefining Your Role in Big Shows

Great events as concerts, music festivals and football matches bring together many people from different backgrounds and interests. In these events, people act, most of the time, as passive spectators, with little or none interaction with the artists in the event. Nowadays, there is some effort to engage people in those spaces, as well as using simple technology such as objects that can be raised on pre-defined moments or, as most recently, using LED technology with sensors. This work proposes an interaction technology for crowds in great events using mobile devices. This technology involves a dynamic and an app to redefine crowd role in those events, increasing their participation and engagement. In order to evaluate people immersion in great events, a case study has been carried out in a controlled environment mimicking a music concert. As a result, it was observed that the participants felt engaged, immersed and motivated to use the proposed technology in music concerts or even other great events and they are also willing to use their own devices as a way of an active participation.

A Scheme for Multimodal Component Recommendation

Multimodal interaction has proved to be a promising way for developing more accessible applications, especially for those people with visual impairments, but it still presents many challenges like the use of touchscreen devices and dynamic resources embedded in web content. For HCI, multimodal interaction is characterized by human intervention using a combination of different sensory modalities as input and output channels. In this paper, it is presented a scheme for recommendation of multimodal components for developing accessible applications and it is discussed lessons learned from its use in the development and evaluation of applications using that scheme. This scheme has already been used to guide the development of two software tools, both aimed at improving accessibility for visually impaired people through multimodal interaction. Results have shown evidence that this scheme is fit for purpose and has given some pointers for a framework for multimodal accessible software development.

Designing for Children Using the RtD and HCD Approaches

Human centred and more traditional HCI design process approaches, such as plain participatory design, are broadly used for designing software and other sorts of computational artefacts for people with cognitive disorders, such as autism. Although it is not straightforward to find out proper requirements for those artefacts because people with autism have a poor ability for social communication and interaction allied to other ecology-related or circumstantial problems. The work described in this article aims to conceive innovative ways of designing computer-based artefacts for children with autism. These artefacts should be smart enough to adapt not only their interface elements but also the way they interact with different people (children, in this case). We report on a design method devised to tackle the use of computational artefacts by children with autism set within the Research through Design Approach for HCI [24] inspired on the HCD approach [10].

A Playground Model to Stimulate Social interaction in Autistic Children

Public places may trigger disruptive behaviour in children with autism, embarrassing their parents and caretakers. This is because usually these places challenge the child to Interact with their peers and other people while experiencing sensory overload (mixed noises, laughs, smells, music). This paper brings an attempt to improve autistic childrens ability to interact appropriately in Play Park, practicing some of the most experienced challenges with a physical model.