▶ Addresses the accessibility, usability, and, ultimately, acceptability of Information Society Technologies by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and through any media and device. ▶ Focuses on theoretical, methodological, and empirical research, of both technological and non-technological nature. ▶ Features papers that report on theories, methods, tools, empirical results, reviews, case studies, and best-practice examples.

Universal access in the information society

The usefulness of mobile devices has increased greatly in recent years allowing users to perform more tasks in a mobile context. This increase in usefulness has come at the expense of the usability of these devices in some contexts. We conducted a small review of mobile usability models and found that usability is usually measured in terms of three attributes; effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Other attributes, such as cognitive load, tend to be overlooked in the usability models that are most prominent despite their likely impact on the success or failure of an application. To remedy this we introduces the PACMAD (People At the Centre of Mobile Application Development) usability model which was designed to address the limitations of existing usability models when applied to mobile devices. PACMAD brings together significant attributes from different usability models in order to create a more comprehensive model. None of the attributes that it includes are new, but the existing prominent usability models ignore one or more of them. This could lead to an incomplete usability evaluation. We performed a literature search to compile a collection of studies that evaluate mobile applications and then evaluated the studies using our model.

/pdf/usability-of-mobile-applications-literature-review-and-2sgkvggy18.pdf

Usability of mobile applications: literature review and rationale for a new usability model

Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems 参加報告

This paper describes an empirical study of the problems encountered by 32 blind users on the Web. Task-based user evaluations were undertaken on 16 websites, yielding 1383 instances of user problems. The results showed that only 50.4% of the problems encountered by users were covered by Success Criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). For user problems that were covered by WCAG 2.0, 16.7% of websites implemented techniques recommended in WCAG 2.0 but the techniques did not solve the problems. These results show that few developers are implementing the current version of WCAG, and even when the guidelines are implemented on websites there is little indication that people with disabilities will encounter fewer problems. The paper closes by discussing the implications of this study for future research and practice. In particular, it discusses the need to move away from a problem-based approach towards a design principle approach for web accessibility.

http://www-course.cs.york.ac.uk/advt/classes/class03/materials/Power,%20Freire,%20Petrie,%20Swallow%202012.pdf

Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed.

/pdf/personalization-in-cultural-heritage-the-road-travelled-and-35wrqofbvf.pdf

Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

The increasing diffusion of electronic commerce (eCommerce) services is a great opportunity for visually-disabled people, provided that accessible and usable interactive environments are available. Usually e-Commerce sites have complex layouts crowded with elements and are difficult to navigate via screen reader. Another crucial issue concerns consumer trust in security of on-line transactions. In this paper we investigate the interaction of blind users with eBay, a popular eCommerce website, with specific focus on accessibility and usability of secure transactions when navigating via screen reader.

/pdf/user-trust-in-ecommerce-services-perception-via-screen-23ywakl692.pdf

User Trust in eCommerce Services: Perception via Screen Reader

The aim of this work is to provide designers and developers of Web applications with support to obtain systems that are usable for vision-impaired users. To this end, a number of design criteria to improve Web site navigation through screen readers or other similar devices have been defined. A user test by blind and vision-impaired subjects showed that such criteria improve Web site usability both qualitatively and quantitatively. An inspection-based tool has been developed to ease the application of the defined criteria. Its main features are presented in this article along with examples of applications and related discussion.

/pdf/automatic-inspection-based-support-for-obtaining-usable-web-510zmyqn8i.pdf

Automatic inspection-based support for obtaining usable Web sites for vision-impaired users

A key feature of Web 2.0 is the possibility of sharing, creating and editing on-line content. This approach is increasingly used in learning environments to favor interaction and cooperation among students. These functions should be accessible as well as easy to use for all participants. Unfortunately accessibility and usability issues still exist for Web 2.0-based applications. For instance, Wikipedia presents many difficulties for the blind. In this paper we discuss a possible solution for simplifying the Wikipedia editing page when interacting via screen reader. Building an editing interface that conforms to W3C ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) recommendations would overcome accessibility and usability problems that prevent blind users from actively contributing to Wikipedia.

/pdf/making-wikipedia-editing-easier-for-the-blind-3zmm21f796.pdf

Making Wikipedia editing easier for the blind

This tutorial discusses accessibility and usability issues for disabled students. It briefly reports on a study of disabled students and teachers in the UK, Italy and Poland and presents guidelines and recommendations.

Accessibility and Usability of Educational Gaming Environments for Disabled Students

Collaborative software tools allow people to share documents and knowledge via Internet, in a simple, economic and efficient way. Unfortunately collaborative software often relies heavily on visual features and dynamic technologies with user interfaces that are difficult to use via screen reader, or are sometimes even inaccessible for the blind.

In this paper we illustrate and discuss results of an accessibility inspection of the main collaborative functions of Google Docs using the JAWS screen reader. Results highlight several difficulties encountered when interacting with elements of the Google Docs interfaces. Content perception is often incomplete, since many elements or changes occurring in the collaborative environment are not intercepted by the screen reader and announced to the user. In addition, the behavior of the collaborative functions analyzed (as well as the rendering) changes from one web browser to another. Some general guidelines are discussed, for designing user interfaces of collaborative editors that are more usable when interacting via screen reader.

/pdf/collaborative-editing-for-all-the-google-docs-example-1qko91y9p0.pdf

Barbara Leporini

Papers

User Trust in eCommerce Services: Perception via Screen Reader

Automatic inspection-based support for obtaining usable Web sites for vision-impaired users

Making Wikipedia editing easier for the blind

Accessibility and Usability of Educational Gaming Environments for Disabled Students

Collaborative editing for all: the google docs example