Accessibility (Computer Science)

El/la profesional del diseño gráfico es cada vez más flexible y se adapta a un contexto en constante transformación, con un gran compromiso con la sociedad, y sensibilidad con la inclusión y la accesibilidad. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la importancia del diseño gráfico en la creación de un sitio web accesible conforme a las WCAG del W3C. Los resultados muestran la importancia del perfil del diseñador/a gráfico. En total, el 51,28% de los criterios de conformidad de las WCAG tienen en el perfil del diseñador/a gráfico a uno de sus responsables principales.

Ensuring mathematics education for all learners, including students with blindness learning in mainstream classrooms, is crucial. This exploratory research aims to clarify the characteristics of geometric learning among students with blindness and to identify the factors contributing to the challenges faced by this population. The Van Hiele theory of geometric thought served as a reference framework. Qualitative data were gathered through group interviews with specialists in the field of education for students with blindness and analyzed using inductive analysis. Participants affirmed that students with blindness progress through Van Hiele levels of geometric thought in a manner similar to sighted students, suggesting that much of the learning can take place alongside sighted peers in mainstream classrooms. However, they also highlighted the unique challenges these students face in reaching level 0, a level where students recognize shapes without a formal understanding of their properties or attributes. Among the reasons for these challenges were that for these particular students, subskills, such as bimanual exploration, hand coordination, and cognitive integration, are required to reach level 0. The study also identified the necessity for specialists in visual impairment education to guide students using appropriate tasks and learning materials that reflect the characteristics of haptic perception. Since level 0 serves as a gateway to both basic and advanced geometry, the findings underscore the importance of providing differentiated support that targets these subskills early in students' schooling. To ensure meaningful geometry instruction, mainstream teachers are encouraged to collaborate with specialists in visual impairment education, who can guide the selection of appropriate learning tools and support the development of the subskills.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in agriculture has significantly enhanced pesticide risk assessment and decision-making. AI-driven pesticide risk prediction models provide accurate forecasting, minimizing environmental hazards and ensuring food safety. However, accessibility to such innovations remains a challenge, particularly in multilingual societies. This study explores AIbased pesticide risk models and the role of multilingual learning interfaces in democratizing access to agricultural insights. A hybrid framework integrating machine learning models for risk assessment and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-powered interfaces is proposed. The study highlights how AI can bridge linguistic barriers, improve risk mitigation strategies, and ensure broader adoption among farmers.

The purpose of the study was to: A. to investigate the frequency and reasons for adjudicating the placement of a child in foster care when contacts are not fulfilled despite the issuance of an order for payment of the monetary sum due [Article 598(16) CCP]; B. to determine whether the courts examine the financial status of the person failing to fulfil, improperly fulfilling or violating the obligations arising from the judgment or from the agreement concluded before a court or before a mediator on the subject of contact with the child; to examine in what amounts the courts threaten to order payment/order payment of the sum of money due; to try to relate the amount adjudicated to the financial status of the parents; or to relate this amount to the amount of maintenance due to the child (if information on the amount of maintenance will be available in the file). The survey comprised two parts: A. a survey for judges consisting of 12 questions; B. analysis of 180 files of cases on enforcement of contacts [Article 598(15) CCP and Article 598(16) CCP].

Thisresearchinvestigateshowtheaccessibilityofvideogamescanbeimprovedfordeafandhearingimpairedplayers.Thejournalisdividedintoseveralareas,first,examiningtheuseofsubtitlesand closedcaptionsusedinvideogames;andsecond,howvisualcuescanbeusedtoprovidebetter accessibility for deaf and hearing-impaired gamers. This includes effectively creating suitable atmospheresandmoodingamesthroughlightingaswellashavingavariedenvironmentthatprevents theplayersfromgettingboredwiththesettingofagameandfinallyexploringcurrentbestpractices withinthegamingindustry.Throughthisresearchdatatheissueswithaccessibilitycanbefound aswellashowalackofaccessibilityaffectsdeafandhearing-impairedgamers.Researchfromthis investigation supports some of the evidence from other researchers in the field that accessibility featuresfordeafandhearing-impairedcanbeconsideredandimplemented.

This article addresses an issue at the intersection of enforcement proceedings and bankruptcy proceedings. The declaration of bankruptcy of an enforced debtor results in the suspension and subsequent discontinuation of enforcement proceedings directed
at assets forming part of the bankruptcy estate. As a consequence of this principle, the legislator has established that funds obtained in suspended enforcement proceedings but not yet disbursed must be transferred to the bankruptcy estate once the bankruptcy declaration becomes final (Article 146(2) of the Polish Bankruptcy Law).
In light of this regulation, a dispute has arisen in legal doctrine and case law regarding the scope of the obligation to transfer these funds to the bankruptcy estate. The primary objective of this article is to determine the entity responsible for this obligation, the manner in which it should be executed, and the scope of the obligation itself. The article argues that enforcement costs related to the recovery of funds referred to in Article 146(2) of the Bankruptcy Law should be satisfied within bankruptcy proceedings under the same principles as bankruptcy proceeding costs, meaning they should be given the highest priority.

Government bodies use public procurement policies and mechanisms to purchase ICT products and services. Some governments in OECD countries apply accessibility criteria when procuring ICT to improve access to their services and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. This may have a flow-on effect of greater availability of affordable and accessible ICT thus improving digital inclusion. This paper outlines research on comparative analysis of the situation in Australia with current policy in OECD countries. The research resulted in recommendations for a consumer-oriented plan to work with Australian governments on the introduction of accessibility criteria in ICT public procurement.

As principais caracteristicas de uma crianca autista sao o atraso na  comunicacao e a dificuldade de interacao social que podem limitar seu  desenvolvimento pessoal e educacional. Quanto mais cedo uma crianca autista  receber intervencao, maiores serao suas chances de diminuir as dificuldades  citadas. Dentre as intervencoes usadas com criancas autistas existe o uso de  ferramentas tecnologicas que contemplam produtos como: softwares,  ambientes, aplicativos e robos. No entanto, equipes de desenvolvimento desse  tipo de produtos, podem enfrentar diversas dificuldades ao tentar incluir  criancas autistas dentro do processo de desenvolvimento. Nesse contexto, este  artigo visa apresentar a proposta de um processo para apoiar projetos de  interfaces destinados a criancas autistas. Este processo, denominado ProAut, se  baseia nos principios das abordagens do Design Participativo e Design  Centrado no Usuario, com o intuito de facilitar a identificacao das  necessidades destes usuarios. ...

Government bodies use public procurement policies and mechanisms to purchase ICT products and services. Some governments in OECD countries apply accessibility criteria when procuring ICT to improve access to their services and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. This may have a flow-on effect of greater availability of affordable and accessible ICT thus improving digital inclusion. This paper outlines research on comparative analysis of the situation in Australia with current policy in OECD countries. The research resulted in recommendations for a consumer-oriented plan to work with Australian governments on the introduction of accessibility criteria in ICT public procurement.

In this article we look for new insights into the teaching of localisation by defining the academic field as a translation-oriented and, at the same time, technology-intensive discipline. This definition encourages us to reconcile the main objectives of both areas by integrating a user-centred, human-computer interaction approach, where verbal and non-verbal communication of meaning and affordances is central. Disciplinary and technological challenges are reviewed and confronted with some of our strategies to cope with them. By embracing the above holistic definition, and incorporating accessibility as a key factor both for the practice and the teaching of localisation, we try to make the most of the linkages between technology, communication, social and user needs, as well as professional and research-driven translatorial action. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing➝Accessibility-Accessibility theory, concepts and paradigms • Social and professional topics➝Professional topics-Information technology education Applied computing➝Language translation.

Patient information recorded in electronic medical records is the most significant set of information of the healthcare system. It assists healthcare providers to introduce high quality care for patients. The aim of this study identifies the security threats associated with electronic medical records and gives recommendations to keep them more secured. The study applied the qualitative research method through a case study. The study conducted seven interviews with medical staff and information technology technicians. The study results classified the issues that face electronic medical records into four main categories which were availability, accessibility, privacy, and safety of health information.

 Automatically generating a natural language description of an image is a major challenging task in the field of artificial intelligence. Generating description of an image bring together the fields: Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision. There are two types of approaches i.e. top-down and bottom-up. For this paper, we approached top-down that starts from the image and converts it into the word. Image is passed to Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) encoder and the output from it is fed further to Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) decoder that generates meaningful captions. We generated the image description by passing the real time images from the camera of a smartphone as well as tested with the test images from the dataset. To evaluate the model performance, we used BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) score and match predicted words to the original caption.

For software applications with a significant level of user involvement, the traditional concept of usability has evolved into the more complex idea of user experience, which also covers emotional, cognitive or physical responses. In virtual reality, user experience also depends on the user perception related to some peculiarities of immersive environments, where also the devices employed for user interaction play a determinant role. This has led to the design of the Presence Questionnaire (PQ) for the evaluation of the effectiveness of virtual environments. This work analyzes the effects of two different interaction modalities on usability and sense of presence: in particular, the Myo armband, a gesture-based device for touchless interaction, is compared with the Vive handheld controller bundled with the HTC Vive headset. A total of 84 subjects were recruited to test the virtual environment and asked them to fill in a questionnaire obtained by combining the Usability Metric for User...

Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.

Usability tests are a part of user-centered design. Usability testing with disabled people is necessary, if they are among the potential users. Several researchers have already investigated usability methods with sighted people. However, research with blind users is insufficient, for example, due to different knowledge on the use of assistive technologies and the ability to analyze usability issues from inspection of non-visual output of assistive devices. From here, the authors aspire to extend theory and practice by investigating four usability methods involving the blind, visually impaired and sighted people. These usability methods comprise of local test, synchronous remote test, tactile paper prototyping and computer-based prototyping. In terms of effectiveness of evaluation and the experience of participants and the facilitator, local tests were compared with synchronous remote tests and tactile paper prototyping with computer-based prototyping. Through the comparison of local and synchronous remote tests, it has been found that the number of usability problems uncovered in different categories with both approaches was comparable. In terms of task completion time, there is a significant difference for blind participants, but not for the visually impaired and sighted. Most of the blind and visually impaired participants prefer the local test. As for the comparison of tactile paper prototyping and computer-based prototyping, it has been revealed that tactile paper prototyping provides a better overview of an application while the interaction with computer-based prototypes is closer to reality. Problems regarding the planning and conducting of these methods as they arise in particular with blind people were also discussed. Based on the authors' experiences, recommendations were provided for dealing with these problems from both the technical and the organization perspectives.

Technological tools for education may emerge from academic environments. However, it is important to evaluate their quality before adopting them in school context. In this work, an application that explores the origin of Portuguese words was developed. Usability and UX (User eXperience) evaluation was held to verify application suitability and ease of use interaction. To the surprise of the developers, several problems were found and suggestions for improvements were made. Thus, the main theme of this work is to encourage this type of development, taking into account the importance of submitting educational software for usability and UX inspections to prevent major problems. Resumo. Ferramentas tecnológicas aplicadas à educação podem surgir de ambientes acadêmicos. No entanto, antes de adotá-las no contexto escolar é importante avaliar sua qualidade. Este trabalho apresenta um aplicativo que explora a origem das palavras da língua portuguesa. Para verificar a adequação do aplicativo e a facilidade de interação dos usuários foi realizada uma avaliação de Usabilidade e UX (User eXperience). Para surpresa dos desenvolvedores, foram detectados vários problemas e melhorias foram sugeridas. Assim, o mote principal deste trabalho é incentivar esse tipo de desenvolvimento, levando em consideração a importância de submeter esse tipo de software a inspeções de usabilidade e UX como medida preventiva.

The article suggests a canvas-oriented approach to the design of computer games in the creative process of problem-oriented execution of development stages: studying consumers as players (the outline of a business model, the outline of an empathy card); studying the aesthetics of the game based on player needs (the outline of psychotypes and aesthetics of players , the outline of player's ability to manage information and actions); study of "Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics" model properties (the outline of gamification model, the outline of game mechanics and dynamics); research and design of the game world (outline of the narrative, outline of the game world, outline of game levels, outline of ethical dilemmas). But canvas are not considered in the standard pre-defined development process but are considered in a special event-competition for rapid design in so-called Hackathoncompetition, for example, in the Global Game Jam competition (GGJ) with a 48-hour game development cycle. A short period of time to design a game requires the same operational verification of the canvas of ethical dilemmas to reduce the risk of incorrect content of the game among beginner development teams. The analysis of the ethical dilemmas of the game was based on logic of the semiotic chain (sign-context-meaning-addressee), where each game object is a sign that in the specific context of the game narrative and player experience expresses meaning (meaning different connotations in terms of additional emotional, estimated, stylistic value of an object or phenomenon). The authors described GGJ-features in the form of diversifiers-optional restrictions that can be used by participants in their work so that their implementation in various variations can often create an innovative game. At the same time, it is noted that in research on design of computer games diversifiers are not given due attention as indicators of consumer requirements. Therefore, the purpose of the article was the inclusion of diversifiers in a canvas-oriented game design approach, which will take into account the effect of the short duration of the competition for the stability of the game design process. The prototypes of diversifiers in Hackathon-conditions of computer games design are presented. The structure of the diversifiers presented at two Hackathon contests (GGJ 2018 and GGJ 2019) was analyzed: five groups of diversifiers (sponsor, accessibility, art, sound, and design, narrative) with 64 diversifiers which were suggested to be grouped according to the "Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics" model and copyrighted works on the design of the game. It is shown that the use of canvas structures the development process, reducing the time to generate design ideas in the process of inventing game mechanics and dynamics, when the canvas can become a roadmap for making creative decisions when designing a game. They can be a convenient basis for automating the process of designing a paper prototype of a game as a quest game process, provided that each outline represents a location with quest tasks, the variability of which depends on the capabilities of project team members. Diversifiers in the hackathon competition are important metacomponents for the entire outline-oriented design of the game, optimizing the processes of creative and technical development not only from the point of view of competition, but also daily professional activity, creating a constant interaction of each stage of development with the requirements of the future game user.

Music has been studied as a cognitive activity that has variety of possibilities. For example, many cases showed that music affects spatial cognitive process and cognitive performances. In recent emerge of embodied cognition, in addition to the former research, music's connection to various bodily aspects are investigated. Especially, stepping aside from the boundary of information processing systemic or emotional perspectives, several studies found that there is a link between music and spatial cognition based on embodied cognitive perspectives. In this study, based on the embodied music cognition started from an empirical study, we tried to search several examples of music as involuntary effect on human behavior and activity. Also theoretically effective guidance for designing games, user interfaces and decision making process in marketing based on auditory cues for behavioral changes were discussed.

Recent computer vision advances can enable television control using midair barehand input, for which selecting targets using hand positions is a primary task. Yet, the size and position of a preferred 2D interaction region has not been specifically investigated for this setting. We report on a field study with people in front of their own television in their own home. Controlled variations of target position stimuli were presented while a camera records the natural hand position used by the participant in response. Based on hand and face landmarks, density plots define a preferred input region location and size using a human-scaled unit of face-widths. Distribution of hand positions relative to target stimuli reveals consistency and precision, suggesting an ability for users to map their input space to display space. We elicit an ideal input region from participants and provide a range of dimensions for designers implementing barehand input techniques.

Recent computer vision advances can enable television control using midair barehand input, for which selecting targets using hand positions is a primary task. Yet, the size and position of a preferred 2D interaction region has not been specifically investigated for this setting. We report on a field study with people in front of their own television in their own home. Controlled variations of target position stimuli were presented while a camera records the natural hand position used by the participant in response. Based on hand and face landmarks, density plots define a preferred input region location and size using a human-scaled unit of face-widths. Distribution of hand positions relative to target stimuli reveals consistency and precision, suggesting an ability for users to map their input space to display space. We elicit an ideal input region from participants and provide a range of dimensions for designers implementing barehand input techniques.

With an increasing number of people who live in cities, urban mobility becomes one of the most important research fields in the so-called smart city environments. Urban mobility can be defined as the ability of people to move around the city, living and interacting with the space. For these reasons, urban accessibility represents a primary factor to keep into account for social inclusion and for the effective exercise of citizenship. In this thesis, we researched how to use crowdsourcing and participative sensing to effectively and efficiently collect data about aPOIs (accessible Point Of Interests) with the aim of obtaining an updated, trusted and completed accessible map of the urban environment. The data gathered in such a way, was integrated with data retrieved from external open dataset and used in computing personalized accessible urban paths. In order to deeply investigate the issues related to this research, we designed and prototyped mPASS, a context-aware and location-base...

Studies on technology adoption typically assume that a user's perception of usability and usefulness of technology are central to its adoption. Specifically, in the case of accessibility and assistive technology, research has traditionally focused on the artifact rather than the individual, arguing that individual technologies fail or succeed based on their usability and fit for their users. Using a mixed-methods field study of smartphone adoption by 81 people with visual impairments in Bangalore, India, we argue that these positions are dated in the case of accessibility where a non-homogeneous population must adapt to technologies built for sighted people. We found that many users switch to smartphones despite their awareness of significant usability challenges with smartphones. We propose a nuanced understanding of perceived usefulness and actual usage based on needrelated social and economic functions, which is an important step toward rethinking technology adoption for people with disabilities.

In this half-day workshop, we will explore how to co-design technology in inclusive classrooms where children have diverse sensory, motor, cognitive or behavioral abilities. We will discuss barriers and opportunities in co-designing for inclusion, exploring techniques and tools to support learning in a collaborative environment. We encourage researchers, educators, parents, and other stakeholders to participate and provide their expertise and know-how in improving these environments, with an aim to support both inclusion and collaboration; and children's exploration of their own interests and approaches to learning. We seek to better understand research experiences in these environments, co-design techniques that were successfully used, and what they can teach the broader field of interaction design for children. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Participatory design; Accessibility design and evaluation methods.

Statistics Canada's Profi le of Disability in Canada estimates 3.6 million Canadians (12.4%) are living with a disability. Many of these individuals face barriers and obstacles in their daily lives, both physical and social. Some institutions (e.g., public libraries and libraries attached to colleges, universities and corporations) are obligated to provide accessible services to persons with special needs as outlined in the Ontarian's with Disabilities Act, 2001. And of course, the provision of equitable access to library services and resources for all library users is a tenet of librarianship. This column will introduce readers to Web portals designed for persons with disabilities and those who work with them. Appropriately, we have tried to include Web sites whose creators have made an effort to enhance accessibility through the use of alternate text-only access and sensitivity to screen readability.

This paper aims to introduce a useful approach on the combined use of template based publishing tools (ie for blogs and wikis) and content personalization services. The approach considers that the original developers of web content have limited awareness on accessibility issues, and they are facilitated and guided by the editing interface. The publishing mechanism is responsible for storing web content in a flexible representation, where structured content is separated from the formatting information. Intermediate ...

Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.

Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.

We present a suite of inclusive games designed to address the needs of people with blindness or low vision. Particularly, through the employment of modern sonification strategies that achieves efficient perceptual representation of the game‐play, several audio‐games with different scenarios and application scope (entertainment and education) were developed and demonstrated. A platform called “Memor‐i studio” that allows nontechnical users (including blind ones under supervision) to create such inclusive games has also been developed. The overall presentation includes the detailed description of the outcome of the evaluation process involved children and young people aged between 7 and 20 years old from the Special Elementary School for the Blind in Athens and the Education and Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind in Athens, Greece. The description is also extended to include the design framework of Memor‐i studio. The conclusions of this evaluation are unexpectedly encouraging, showi...

In this study, the access of physically disabled and visionally impaired people to urban spaces in the city center, is discussed through the example of Amasya city. The study is aimed to evaluate the use of Mustafa Kemal Paşa Avenue and crossing streets by the use of disabled people. Method of research includes the survey having observations, examinations and observations carried out in the field research, as well as a questionnaire for the physically and visually impaired. By comparing the results of the survey and the results of the observations, it was tried to determine the spatial situations which have negative impacts on the use and access of disabled people.

Hackathons bring developers, artists and designers together around a shared challenge: ideate, plan and create an application in a highly constrained time frame. A way to socialize, solve problems, and strengthen soft and hard skills, hackathons have grown tremendously in popularity in the last half decade. Despite this growth, it has been noted that females do not participate in hackathons with the same frequency as males. Some theorize that the hackathon culture is intimidating, does not appeal to women, or that it acts to amplify pre-existing cultural biases in computing. In this paper we introduce an alternative format for hackathons to address these issues. Think Global Hack Local (TGHL) is a non-competitive, communitybased hackathon that connects non-profit organizations with student developers. Students donate a weekend to solve problems that these organizations otherwise lack the resources to solve. To date, there have been two TGHL hackathons, and we have observed many interesting divergences within the culture of TGHL in comparison to other hackathons. Response has been positive, and nearly all of them indicate that they would do it again. By adopting some of these ideas, we believe that hackathons can become an environment that is more inclusive and fun for all.

The assistive technology is increasingly present in educational contexts, however resources that helps autistic people are scarce. In this sense the current article intends to present the design, development and validation process of a assistive game, focused on the narratives building for autistic people. Called LIA, the game allows the creation of narratives dragging images to a text field, where they are formed phrases related to the selected image. The results obtained with the LIA validation, revealed that it is clear, objective and can besides stimulate ability to construct narratives, assist in the language development.

New media and devices are offering huge possibilities for the enhancement and the enrichment of heritage experiences, improving the users' involvement. In particular, tourists equipped with their mobile devices are invading cultural attractions, sharing pictures and comments (together with hashtags and geo-localized positions) on social networks. These represent an unofficial source of data, which can be integrated with the official ones provided by GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) and cultural heritage institutions, enriching them. At the same time, travel planners and mobile applications related to cultural heritage can play an interesting role in the development of smart cities, when they are integrated each other, engaging the user in touristic and entertainment activities, letting him/her be a source of cultural resources. This work focuses on equipping users (citizens and tourists) with a system providing support in computing personalized urban paths across cultural heritage places (monuments, palaces, museums, and other points of interest (POIs) related to cultural heritage in the urban environment) and in sharing multimedia resources about POIs, by exploiting gamification elements with the aim of engaging citizens and tourists. A mobile application prototype has been implemented, showing the feasibility of the proposed approach and exploiting crowdsourcing activities as a source of information for cultural places and works of art.

This work presents mPASS (mobile Pervasive Accessibility Social Sensing), a social and ubiquitous context aware system to provide users with personalized and accessible pedestrian paths and maps. In order to collect a complete data set, our system gathers information from different sources: sensing, crowdsourcing and data produced by local authors and disability organizations. Gathered information are tailored to user's needs and preferences on the basis of his/her context, defined by his/her location, his/her profile and quality of data about the personalized path. To support the effectiveness of our approach, we have developed a prototype, which is described in this paper, together with some results of the context-based adaptation. Keywords-social location-based context aware systems; location aware applications in smartphones; user interfaces and usability issues for ubiquitous applications I.

This paper presents mPASS (mobile Pervasive Accessibility Social Sensing), a system designed to collect data about urban and architectural accessibility and to provide users with personalized paths, computed on the basis of their preferences and needs. The system combines data obtained by sensing, crowdsourcing and mashing-up with main geo-referenced social systems, with the aim of offering services based on a detailed and valid data set.

Urban environments, university campuses, and public and private buildings often present architectural barriers that prevent people with disabilities and special needs to move freely and independently. This paper presents a systematic mapping study of the scientific literature proposing devices, and software applications aimed at fostering accessible wayfinding and navigation in indoor and outdoor environments. We selected 111 out of 806 papers published in the period 2009-2020, and we analyzed them according to different dimensions: at first, we surveyed which solutions have been proposed to address the considered problem; then, we analyzed the selected papers according to five dimensions: context of use, target users, hardware/software technologies, type of data sources, and user role in system design and evaluation. Our findings highlight trends and gaps related to these dimensions. The paper finally presents a reflection on challenges and open issues that must be taken into consideration for the design of future accessible places and of related technologies and applications aimed at facilitating wayfinding and navigation.

This work presents a novel geospatial mapping service, based on OpenStreetMap, which has been designed and developed in order to provide personalized path to users with special needs. This system gathers data related to barriers and facilities of the urban environment via crowdsourcing and sensing done by users. It also considers open data provided by bus operating companies to identify the actual accessibility feature and the real time of arrival at the stops of the buses. The resulting service supports citizens with reduced mobility (users with disabilities and/or elderly people) suggesting urban paths accessible to them and providing information related to travelling time, which are tailored to their abilities to move and to the bus arrival time. The manuscript demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach by means of a case study focusing on the differences between the solutions provided by our system and the ones computed by main stream geospatial mapping services.

Interconnected computational devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) context make possible to collect real-time data about a specific environment. The IoT paradigm can be exploited together with data visualization techniques to put into effect intelligent environments, where pervasive technologies enable people to experience and interact with the generated data. In this paper, we present a case study where these emerging areas and related technologies have been explored to benefit communities, making their members actively involved as central players of such an intelligent environment. To give practical effect to our approach, we designed and developed a system, named Smart Campus, composed of: i) an infrastructure made of sensors to collect real-time data in a University Campus, and ii) a rich web-based application to interact with spatiotemporal data, available in a public interactive touch monitor. To validate the system and grasp insights, we involved 135 students through a survey, and we extracted meaningful data from the interactive sessions with the public display. Results show that this Campus community understood the potential of the system and students are willing to actively contribute to it, pushing us to better investigate future scenarios where students can participate with ideas, visualizations/services to integrate into the web-based system, as well as sensors to plug into the infrastructure.

Mobility in urban environments is an undisputed key factor that can affect citizens' well-being and quality of life. This is particularly relevant for those people with disabilities or with reduced mobility who have to face the presence of barriers in urban areas. In this scenario, the availability of information about such architectural elements (together with facilities) can greatly support citizens' mobility by enhancing their independence and their abilities in conducting daily outdoor activities. With this in mind, we have designed and developed mobile Pervasive Accessibility Social Sensing (mPASS), a system that provides users with personalized paths, computed on the basis of their own preferences and needs, with a customizable and accessible interface. The system collects data from crowdsourcing and crowdsensing to map urban and architectural accessibility by providing reliable information coming from different data sources with different levels of trustworthiness. In this context, reliability can be ensured by properly managing crowdsourced and crowdsensed data, combined when possible with authoritative datasets, provided by disability rights organizations and local authorities. To demonstrate this claim, in this article we present our trustworthiness model and discuss results we have obtained by simulations.

This paper studies the possibility to convey information using tactile stimulation on fingertips. We designed and evaluated three tactile alphabets which are rendered by stretching the skin of the index's fingertip: (1) a Morse-like alphabet, (2) a symbolic alphabet using two successive dashes, and (3) a display of Roman letters based on the Unistrokes alphabet. All three alphabets (26 letters each) were evaluated through a user study in terms of recognition rate, intuitiveness and learning. Participants were able to perceive and recognize the letters with very good results (80%-97% recognition rates). Tactile alphabets with representations closer to Roman alphabet seem easier to learn. Taken together, our results pave the way to novel kinds of information communication using tactile modality.

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Developed in the context of the Horizon 2020 project SPICE, this paper explores methods and tools for citizen curation, with a focus on designing activities that can effectively elicit and motivate citizens to produce meaningful interpretations and reflections on cultural heritage. Additionally, the paper aims to evaluate the potential of such methods and activities in supporting the analysis and reflection processes within the SPICE Interpretation-Reflection loop (IRL). We explore a selection of narrative-based methods for citizen curation to propose an approach for eliciting meaningful stories related to cultural heritage artifacts from citizens. The proposed approach is subsequently applied in a digital co-design workshop, conducted with members of the SPICE consortium, including the five SPICE museum partners. The collected story contributions are thereafter analysed using qualitative methods and tools adapted from narrative inquiry and the study of narrative identity. The findings provide valuable insights into the potential of narrativebased approaches for citizen engagement in the cultural heritage domain and support the development of the SPICE digital tools for promoting reflection, i.e. sentiment analysis, personalization, recommendation systems, and user-and community modeling tools. In SPICE, such tools play a central role in enabling citizens to create representations of themselves, while also cultivating an understanding and appreciation of similarities and differences across citizen groups. In this direction, the paper offers ideas and insights for designing engaging participatory approaches to elicit citizen input. At the same time, it aims to support the development of digital systems and tools in the cultural heritage domain, with the goal of fostering more inclusive and dynamic representations of citizens and citizen groups. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics → User characteristics; • Human-centered computing → Interaction design; • Theory of computation → Semantics and reasoning; • Applied computing → Law, social and behavioral sciences.

OZET Bu calisma Şisli ilcesinin guneyinde kalan 20 mahallede yer alan kaldirimlarin tekerlekli sandalye kullanan engellilerin kullanimi acisindan ne kadar uygun oldugunun tespit edilmesi amaciyla gerceklestirilmistir. Arazi calismasi ile 7,8 km²'lik alan kaplayan calisma sahasindaki tum kaldirimlar gezilmis, kaldirimlarin genislik ve yukseklikleri olculmus, kaldirimlar uzerindeki objelerin sayi, konum ve turleri ile birlikte kaldirim uzerinde tekerlekli sandalye ile gecisi engelleyip engellemedikleri tespit edilmis, kaldirim uzerindeki bozuk satih ve rampalar da belirlenmistir. Arazide toplanan verilerin ArcGIS ortamina aktarilmalari sonrasinda analizi ile calisma sahasindaki kaldirimlarin tekerlekli sandalye kullanan engelliler acisindan uygunlugu tespit edilmistir. Calismada 251 km uzunlugunda 3018 kaldirim segmentinin tespit edildigi calisma sahasinda cogunlukla dar, duzensiz, cogu yerde agac, motorlu arac, elektrik diregi ve tezgâh gibi objelerle isgal edilen ve rampalardan ...

ABSTRACTEnsuring accessibility on the websites and e-government portals isa duty that public and private entities need to fulfill to enable pluralityin access to content available on the internet. Due to simpleinterfaces, many people have started to use Content ManagementSystems (CMS) to create their blogs or online store. These systemsbegan to be widely used for allowing people without programmingknowledge to create and make their websites available on the internet.Therefore, it becomes essential to assess whether these toolsprovide resources that help the development of accessible websites.Thus, this paper aims to analyze websites developed through a CMSto collect and identify problems related to the criteria that guaranteevirtual accessibility (Accessibility Guidelines for Web Content -WCAG and Model Accessibility in Electronic Government - eMAG)of accessibility for blind or low vision persons.

This article presents an affective-based sensemaking system for grouping and suggesting stories created by the users about the cultural artefacts in a museum. By relying on the TCL commonsense reasoning framework, the system exploits the spatial structure of the Plutchik’s “wheel of emotions” to organize the stories according to their extracted emotions. The process of emotion extraction, reasoning, and suggestion is triggered by an app, called GAMGame, and integrated with the sensemaking engine. Following the framework of Citizen Curation, the system allows classifying and suggesting stories encompassing cultural items able to evoke not only the very same emotions of already experienced or preferred museum objects but also novel items sharing different emotional stances and, therefore, able to break the filter bubble effect and open the users’ view toward more inclusive and empathy-based interpretations of cultural content. The system has been designed tested, in the context of the H2020EU SPICE project (Social cohesion, Participation, and Inclusion through Cultural Engagement), in cooperation with the community of the d/Deaf and on the collection of the Gallery of Modern Art (GAM) in Turin. We describe the user-centered design process of the web app and of its components and we report the results concerning the effectiveness of the diversity-seeking, affective- driven, recommendations of stories.