Assisting people with Nystagmus through image stabilization: Using an ARX model to overcome processing delays.

Pathological Nystagmus is characterized by an unintended and involuntary eye-movement, which tends to impact on visual acuity. Today only view therapies (for instance medication or surgeries) to treat nystagmus are at hand and the existing therapies only show partial improvement. Only general Assistive Technology (AT) solutions like glasses, screen magnifiers, speech output, display adaptation and concepts holders are at hand to support daily living. More specific ATs to reduce the impact of nystagmus are missing. This paper presents conceptual research and feasibility studies with the attempt to reduce the impact of nystagmus by stabilizing the image on the retina (digital Retinal Image Stabilization) by moving the digital image synchronal with the unintended eye movement using gaze contingent display technology. Further an identification and validation process using recorded eye-movements is presented since the synchronization approach relies on predicting eye-movements to reduce the impact of delays due to processing time.

Non-Visually Performing Analytical Tasks on Statistical Charts.

This article proposes a natural language-based approach to accessibility of charts. Formal underpinnings are used to semantically annotate the constituent elements of a vector graphic to support accessing and modifying the content by natural language queries in a web interface. A prototype which lets blind users perform a number of analytical activities on bar charts is introduced.

Accapto, a Generic Design and Development Toolkit for Accessible Mobile Apps.

Smartphones show potential to improve and support the daily lives of people with disabilities. User experience of mobile apps is generally good, but rather unsatisfying for people with disabilities relying on accessibility support. Developers often are not aware of and do not respect this user group. We propose a system supporting developers in early stages of app development. The Accapto toolkit allows modelling accessible smartphone interaction during the design phase. Based on this interaction model the prototype of the resulting app is generated. Predefined accessibility features based on standards and expert knowledge are automatically integrated to enhance accessibility.

Extraction Methodology of Implicit Didactics in Math Schoolbooks for the Blind.

The implicit didactic information embedded in the theoretical part of math schoolbooks is one of the keys for successful learning mathematics, but mostly reserved for sighted students. Thus, the methodology for analyzing this theoretical part of selected math schoolbooks is developed for extracting this implicit didactic information, which will be made accessible. Combined with the blind students' teaching methods in classrooms, a dialog-based assistant concept is suggested for covering core didactics for teaching the blind.

Towards a Cognitive Screenreader.

This paper describes the current state of development of a tool that assists people with cognitive disabilities while using the internet. The support is provided by interfaces that give additional or alternative information for content or user interaction mechanics that are not understood by the support.

Supporting Blind Students in STEM Education in Austria.

Equal access to education will foster a knowledge society for all. In particular for the ICT based information society a benchmark has been set to raise the numbers of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) study courses by 15% (748.000) per year, asking for increased efforts in Europe (http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/strategic-framework/index_en.htm). This holds even more true for people with disabilities who a) participate in and graduate from STEM at a much lower number and b) face a much higher unemployment rate, in particular in STEM related fields. This asks for sound and well-founded education - first and foremost in math - for people with disability and here especially for blind people.

Stepwise Approach to Accessible MOOC Development.

Developing resources for online learning in its many guises and more recently for MOOCs has been discussed across the educational sector, usually by individuals working for one institution or organisation. Rarely are there discussions that highlight the issues of collaborative working on content that is delivered over a period of weeks for a wide range of abilities and skills. In particular there is a reluctance to face the issues presented by barriers to access for those with disabilities and even the issues that could arise should an academic be unable to access the development platform to present content. This paper aims to approach these issues by providing guidance in a series of practical steps that highlight an inclusive design approach.

Ontology-based Semantic Support to Improve Accessibility of Graphics.

We aim to ease the process of authoring accessible graphics as well as taking a first step towards the long-term goal of allowing blind persons to access graphics autonomously. We are developing and experimenting with a hierarchical set of knowledge bases related to the presentation of visual objects and cues in the form of ontologies that will act as the formal, axiomatic underpinnings of an accessibility layer or, later on, a graphics reader/browser for blind and visually impaired people. The concept and prototypes of smart (or communicative) graphics [1], in which readers obtain information about the syntactic and semantic content through the use of e.g. a natural language interface, should be expanded by exploiting the benefits of formal semantics supported by domain- and task-aware ontologies describing the elements, visual cues and relations used for visualization or visual display.

A Comparative Study on Java Technologies for Focus and Cursor Handling in Accessible Dynamic Interactions.

For an interactive application, supporting and guiding the user in fulfilling tasks is most important. The behavior of the application that will guide users through the procedures until they finish the task has to be designed intuitively and well guiding, especially if the users has only restricted or no access to the visual and spatial arrangement on the screen. Therefore, the focus/cursor management plays an important role for orientation and navigating through the interaction. In the frame of ongoing research on a software tool supporting blind people in more efficiently doing mathematical calculations, we researched how Java technologies support implementing an accessible Graphical User Interface (GUI) with an additional focus on usable accessibility in terms of guiding blind users through the process of solving mathematical calculations. We used Java Swing [1] and Eclipse SWT [2] APIs for creating a series of prototypes. We tested a) accessibility and usability of the prototypes for blind people when using screen reader software and refreshable Braille display and b) the implementation support to developers provided by both technologies. It turned out that Eclipse SWT API delivered best results under Windows operating system.

PONS - Mobility Assistance on Footpaths for Public Transportation.

This paper presents an ongoing project targeting mobility support for users of public transportation including people with limited mobility. Existing approaches in this field mostly offer non-continuous guidance during the whole journey including multiple rides with different vehicles and footpaths in between at transfer points. Especially people with limited mobility, like people with disabilities and elderly people, or travelers who are not familiar with the specific route or transfer point, like tourists, often struggle with public transportation. They crave for a seamless approach covering all links of the mobility chain - the sequence of sections of the whole route - and providing comprehensive assistance throughout the whole journey. Previous projects and widespread experiences of project partners revealed that especially footpath sections are lacking proper support. In particular, the consortium identified three problem areas in existing approaches when dealing with footpath sections: (1) A lack of information, (2) a lack of orientation and (3) a lack of provision of services. In order to bridge (lat. PONS) these gaps in the mobility chain, new paradigms and technology concepts are developed to tackle the shortcomings on footpaths and combined in a toolkit to help developers of applications with focus on pedestrian navigation and public transport to improve their solutions with sustainable and state-of-the-art approaches.

2D Presentation Techniques of Mind-maps for Blind Meeting Participants.

Mind-maps, used as ideation technique in co-located meetings (e.g. in brainstorming sessions), which meet with increased importance in business and education, show considerably accessibility challenges for blind meeting participants. Besides an overview of general aspects of accessibility issues in co-located meetings, this paper focuses on the design and development of alternative non-visual presentation techniques for mind-maps. The different aspects of serialized presentation techniques (e.g. treeview) for Braille and audio rendering and two dimensional presentation techniques (e.g. tactile two dimensional array matrix and edge-projection method [1]) are discussed based on the user feedback gathered in intermediate tests following a user centered design approach.