Access For All

Brussels, 30 August 2011 – An EU-funded project is aiming to make self-service terminals, such as public transport ticket vending machines or public information kiosks and cash dispensers, more accessible for the one in six Europeans who have a disability or the 87 million Europeans aged 65 and over.
According to an EU study, only 38% of bank cash machines (automated teller machines or ATMs) across the EU provide voice capabilities to customers with disabilities, far behind the US (61%) and Canada (nearly all ATMs).
The European Commission is contributing €3.41 million, half of the overall budget, to the “APSIS4All” project which aims to design and validate personalised interfaces, including contactless cards, to help overcome existing accessibility barriers. Trials will begin in cash dispensers in Barcelona, Spain from September 2011 and at ticket vending machines in Paderborn, Germany from January 2012, and will run for three years.
The APSIS4All project sets out to design and validate, in real-life settings, innovative, personalised interfaces that overcome existing accessibility barriers. In a first phase, the project will collect information from 3000 users who will be testing different machines in order to adapt interfaces according to their needs and preferences. Tests will be carried out at 65 ATMS of la Caixa bank in Barcelona, Spain from 1st September 2011 and at 24 ticket vending machines operated by Höft & Wessel AG at Paderborn in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany from 1st January 2012.
The goal of this project is to propose a standardised framework that could foster further take up of e-accessibility features by the ATM industry and service providers. This could ultimately help make public digital terminals (PDTs) more accessible to a wide range of users, from people who are not familiar with the technology, people with reading difficulties, tourists who do not master the local language or even people who may have forgotten their reading glasses. APSI4All will focus on multi-modal interaction and cutting edge technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC) or short range wireless communication. For example, tests could involve a programmed card that contains the user’s preferences. When the user brings the card close to the ATM, the machine instantly adapts to the user’s needs (perhaps changing the size of the font or choice of language). Other interfaces could include a mobile phone with accessibility features that enables a customer to purchase a ticket online and pay at the machine issuing the ticket using a secure code sent to their phone.

More information
APSIS4All (Accessible Personalised Services in PDTs for All)

iPortal™ is a power chair accessory that connects to an iPhone or iPod touch to display wheelchair information in real time.

It is a Dynamic Controls solution to offer a unique approach to wheelchair displays that not only shows information in an exciting, easy to read way but brings the latest mainstream technology to the chair.

It is compatible with Dynamic Controls Shark, DX, and DX2 control systems, and iPhone 4.

The accessibility features (e.g. scanning) make phone calls, surf the net, type text and join the online world easier since iPortal’s new Accessibility Application enables the usage of joystick or switch or head array control for interfacing with the iPhone and iPod Touch.

More information on the corporate link.

8th International Conference on Disability, Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies (ICDVRAT 2012)
Laval, France, 10-12 September 2012

First call for papers

• Extended abstract submission deadline: 29 February 2012
• Accepted papers submission deadline: 1 July 2012

For further information see: www.icdvrat.reading.ac.uk

The Call for Papers can be downloaded directly from: http://tinyurl.com/ICDVRAT2012

As mentioned on the event website:

Authorities, organisations, practitioners, users and representatives from enterprises and research and development (R&D) institutions:
Welcome to Oslo June 11th – 13th 2012!
As organisers of Universal Design 2012 Oslo we are looking forward to receiving you in Oslo next year.
The strategy of universal design aims at dismantling physical and social barriers. This conference will focus on solutions and various impacts of implementation relevant to people in public spaces.
Topics to be addressed are issues related to universal design in planning, legislation, politics, education, buildings, outdoor areas, information and communications technologies (ICT) and public transport. The latest international practical knowledge and R&D results on universal design will also be presented.
Our aim is to make the universal design conference in Oslo a meeting place both for speakers and participants. By exchanging knowledge, experiences and ideas we can build global connections and design networks that inspire, challenge, and empower future work on universal design.
More information on event website.

The 6th Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access (UA) and Assistive Technology (AT), also known as CWUAAT 2012, will take place at the Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, UK on 26-29 March 2012.

We received a call for participation for the workshop theme: “Designing Inclusion for real-world applications”, which refers to the emerging potential and relevance of the latest generations of inclusive design data, tools, techniques and thinking, to mainstream project applications such as healthcare and the design of working environments. Previous research developments have addressed these issues in the context of simple daily living activities based on single tasks. New developments are now extending the scope of the approach into real-world applications.
Inclusive Design Research involves developing tools and guidance for supporting product designers to design for the widest possible population for a given range of capabilities. In the context of demographic changes leading to a greater number of older people, the general field of inclusive design research strives to relate the capabilities of the population to the design of products by better characterising the user. Inclusive populations of older people contain a greater variation in sensory, cognitive and physical user capabilities. These variations may be co-occurring and rapidly changing leading to a demanding design environment.

Important Dates

• Deadline for submission of long and short papers: 15 August, 2011
• Notification of paper acceptance: 19 September, 2011
• Deadline for camera-ready version of submitted papers: 24 October, 2011
• Advance registration (ends): 16 January, 2012
• Late registration (ends): 20 February, 2012
• CWUAAT Workshop: 26 – 29 March, 2012

Electronic submission of papers is now available via the conference website.

They seek original research papers describing investigations within the following broad categories:

• Designing For Real-World Applications: Work And Healthcare
• Designing Inclusive Assistive And Rehabilitation Systems
• Measuring Product Demand And Peoples’ Capabilities
• Mainstreaming And Scaling Technology For Healthcare
• Designing Cognitive Interaction With Emerging Technologies
• Effective Engagement With Industry
• Designing Inclusive Spaces: Architecture And Buildings
• Collaborative And Participatory Design For Inclusion
• Data Issues: Visualizing Inclusion: Mining Of Profile Data
• Legislation, Standards And Policy In Inclusive Design

User Forum

CWUAAT 2012 will contain a single paper session allocated as a user forum. This is intended to give users of assistive technology and beneficiaries of improved accessibility an opportunity for an oral presentation of 25 minutes. Both short and long papers will be accepted in this category and topics and themes are not restricted. We welcome academic position papers, social and research agendas, critiques of provision of technology or poor accessibility, engineering or technical papers regarding product design and usage in work and daily living.

Doctoral Consortium

As one of the most successful aspects of CWUAAT ‘10, the event will again include a Doctoral Consortium. Candidates who submit to the doctoral consortium will be able to attend the workshop at a greatly reduced registration and 10 places have been allocated for this purpose. The two presentations judged to be the best by the consortium panel will win a podium presentation in the main workshop.
Demonstrations. It is hoped that participants will be able to gain hands-on experience with working systems. Space and time will be available for demonstrations of software and hardware.

Organising Committee

Dr Patrick Langdon, Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge
Prof John Clarkson, Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge
Prof Peter Robinson, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Guest Editors

Dr Jonathan Lazar, Towson University, USA
Prof Ann Heylighen, K.U.Leuven, Belgium

Mobile Accessibility Workshop will be held at INTERACT 2011, in Lisbon, Portugal, on 5-9 September 2011.
Mobile devices pervade our daily lives. We are on the cusp of a fundamental change in how we relate to information and others, accessible at all times and places. Alas, this change might be barred to a large number of people, suffering from a wide range of disabilities. Mobile devices are increasingly visual, making them hard to use by the blind or other vision-impaired people. Keyboards are steadily being replaced by touchscreens, without tactile feedback, introducing additional barriers. Tetraplegic users have limited mobility of their limbs and hardly are able to pick up the devices or use their fingers for precise pointing. Moreover, the mobile aspect often creates situational impairments where those interaction modes are cumbersome or socially unacceptable, even for non-impaired people.
These are problems studied by the nascent area of Mobile Accessibility, where researchers focus on solving accessibility problems in mobile devices and settings. Bringing together Mobile Computing and Accessibility, it is the source of synergistic works that have the potential of deeply transforming how we look at mobile devices, and to shape the ongoing mobile revolution. This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners in the area.
The topics of the workshop include but are not limited to:

• Mobile interaction accessibility
• Situational impairments
• Assistive Mobile Technologies
• Mobile Web Accessibility

More information can be found at the conference website.