Towards an Accessible Personal Health Record

Patient empowerment frameworks, including personal health records (PHR), actively engage technology empowered citizens in their healthcare. Particularly today, with the current increase of chronic diseases, the high growth rate of the elderly and disabled populations and at the same time the much higher cross-border patient mobility,such systems may prove to be lifesaving, cost effective and time saving. Currently, there are many different online applications promoted as being functional, user-friendly and detailed enough to provide a complete and accurate summary of an individual’s medical history. However, it seems that most of the Web services available do not fully adhere to well known accessibility standards, such as those promoted by the W3C, thus turning them away from people with disability and elderly people, who most probably need them most. Additionally, support for mobile devices introduces additional obstacles to users with disability when trying to operate such services. This paper presents fundamental (design for all) guidelines for the successful implementation of an accessible ePHR service that can be operated by any patient including people with disabilities irrespective of the device they use to access this service

Facilitating virtual networking for Design for All in Europe: The HERMES platform

This paper reports on HERMES, the virtual networking platform of the European Design for All eAccessibility Network (EDeAN) that was established in 2002 by the European Commission in order to stimulate European network activities within the area of Design for All, with particular focus on ICT and e-Accessibility. The paper reports on the development and utilisation of the networking platform developed to enable the cooperation of EDeAN members through an accessible interface over the World Wide Web. HERMES is available at http://www.edean.or

Online Communities for All: The Role of Design for All in the Formation and Support of Inclusive Online Communities

An online community is a virtual community composed of individuals who form and maintain online communication, share common goals, interests and needs that provide the reason of community existence, and use common interactive tools that support their networking and communication activities. The term “networking” is traditionally used to describe the formation and maintenance of connections and relationships between individuals, organizations or other interested parties. Virtual or online networking is a form of interpersonal communication that is characterized by the use of electronic means of communication between the different parties and the exchange of messages and information in electronic forms [11]. Hence, virtual or online communities perform virtual networking. This paper aims to examine how the principles of Design for All can support the formation and operation of online communities that are fully inclusive, multi-cultural and multiplatform, thus providing an infrastructure essentially accessible to all their members to carry out virtual networking activities. Following an introduction to online communities and community formation, the paper briefly builds the case for Design for All and the challenges for new information and communication technologies towards a fully inclusive Information Society. Then, based on practical experience and case studies, the paper examines the benefits and challenges of applying the principles of Design for All in the design, development and support of virtual interaction spaces, in order to cater for the diversity of users-community members, as well as of their environments of use. The paper concludes by proposing a set of design issues to be taken into account in the development of online communities for all

An overview of web accessibility in Greece: a comparative study 2004-2008

This communication reports on the results of a web accessibility audit of public Web sites in Greece. The audit was conducted in 2008 by the Human Computer Interaction Laboratory of the Institute of Computer Science of FORTH, in its capacity as the Greek National Contact Centre of the European Design for All e-Accessibility Network. In an earlier e-Accessibility study in 2004, that evaluated approximately 250 public and commercial Web sites in Greece, 73% of the sample failed to meet the most basic requirements for web accessibility (http://www.infosoc.gr/NR/rdonlyres/0B306F9C-A819-4F96-ABB1-A21945D1D2B3/1092/final_report.pdf). Four years later, in the context of a re-audit, a similar sample was examined for compliance with the same web accessibility standard (WCAG 1.0), as set by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. The accessibility checks were conducted during the period from March to September 2008. A comparison of the results indicates that although new web development technologies may have been employed, instead of improving the overall status of e-accessibility, this has resulted in a serious deterioration in overall accessibility levels. Such findings—85% of sites failed to comply with Level A—suggest that Greek Web sites are likely to present even more significant access barriers to people with disability than in the past. As Web Accessibility is poorly understood and, until today, new platforms have failed to deliver products that conform to WCAG, the need emerges for a concrete legislative framework to set accessibility specifications for all public Web sites in Greece

White Paper: promoting Design for All and e-Accessibility in Europe.

This White Paper results from the collaboration of Design for All (DfA) and e-Accessibility expert bodies representing the European Union member states [ref: the coordination centres of the national European Design for All e-Accessibility network (EDeAN) in 23 European Union Member States, in this document referred to as NCCs]. The objectives of this White Paper are threefold: (1) to present the current state of affairs of EDeAN, active since 2002 as part of the European Commission’s action line supporting the development of the European Information Society; (2) to outline a roadmap for future initiatives, actively reflecting views of the EDeAN network in specific domains related to DfA, e-Accessibility and e-Inclusion; and (3) to bring forward a set of suggestions and recommendations regarding the activities of the network, aiming to support the creation of a fully inclusive European Information Society. The paper is organised as follows: Section 1 provides a short introduction to DfA and Accessibility in Information Society (IS) and Information Society Technology (IST) developments in Europe. Section 2 provides an overview of policy as well as R&D activities related to DfA and accessibility in IST in Europe. Section 3 briefly describes the role of EDeAN and the new challenges that emerge as a result of the changing European policy environment. Section 4 presents current challenges that emerge in five domains directly related to DfA and accessibility, such as policy and legislation, industry, monitoring and evaluation—benchmarking, standardisation, R&D, and education and training. Finally, Sect. 5 puts forward a number of recommendations with regard to future activities for EDeAN. The contents of this paper reflect results from the open discussion forums supported in the EDeAN website (ref: EDeAN Special Interest Groups, SIGs). The draft paper was written by the EDeAN Secretariat for 2005, FORTH-ICS (Greece), and completed with the support of all NCCs. Support was also provided by the European Commission DG Information Society and Media and by the D4ALLnet project (ref: an EC funded project with the code IST-2001-38833)

Incorporating Accessibility in Web-Based Work Environments: Two Alternative Approaches and Issues Involved

The development of online work and collaboration environments presents a number of opportunities as well as challenges, especially for diverse user populations. They can enhance the mobility of workers and, subject to their design, offer access to people with disability and contribute significantly to tackling existing barriers in employment and social inclusion. At present, a number of web-based work environments have been developed; nonetheless, they hardly reach people with disability due to their low conformance with Web accessibility principles. One of the reasons why incorporating accessibility in online environments remains elusive for most Web service providers is that it is difficult for them to choose among the alternative approaches. This paper examines two different approaches of Web accessibility engineering from a provider’s perceptive and in relation to the resources required in each case. In the first approach, interfaces are made accessible by design, whereas the second approach involves the use of “filter and transformation tools” as a means to transform existing non-accessible interfaces into ones that comply with de facto Web accessibility recommendations. Based on the authors’ experience and hands-on practice on both approaches gained in the context of several European and national projects and through the development of fifteen accessible online tools in total, a study was conducted to examine the cost effectiveness of each approach. As a result, a set of practical guidelines are offered here for assisting web service providers in identifying the most appropriate approach with regards to the different needs of any given project

When Universal Access does not go to plan: Lessons to be learned

While the theory of designing for Universal Access is increasingly understood, there remain persistent issues over realising products and systems that meet the goal of being accessible and usable by the broadest possible set of users. Clearly products or service that are designed without even considering the needs of the wider user base are implicitly going to struggle to be universally accessible. However, even products that have been designed knowing that they are to be used by broad user bases frequently still struggle to achieve the ambition of being universally accessible. This paper examines a number of such products that did not achieve, at least initially, the desired level of universal accessibility. Principal recommendations from each case study are presented to provide a guide to common issues to be avoided

An AAC-Enabled Internet: From User Requirements to Guidelines

Ensuring that WWW pages are accessible and usable for people with complex communication needs provides a particular challenge for WWW page designers. Despite advances in commercially available assistive technologies, people using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) comment on continuing difficulty and frustration in physical access to technology and subsequent reliance on non-disabled partners (Clarke et al., 2001 and 2002). The EU WWAAC (World Wide Augmentative and Alternative Communication) project, which began in January 2001, has been engaged in a number of research and development activities in order to overcome some of these problems, including the: • Development of Internet applications, including an adapted Web browser, tailored to the needs of people who use AAC • Contribution to the development of Web accessibility guidelines • Development of a communication infrastructure and protocol to support symbol-based communication on the Web, based upon open-sourced concept coding • Development of a Dreamweaver extension to enable Web developers to symbol embellish their Web pages via the on-line concept coding database. This paper will concentrate on the first 2 activities to demonstrate how the design, development and evaluation of an adapted Web browser with people who use AAC will lead to more accessible and usable software. This work is also contributing to the development of WWW accessibility guidelines, which will feed into the work of the World Wide Web Consortium–Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C–WAI). It is important, however, to consider these activities in light of the concept coding stream of the work, which is briefly described below. Concept coding will facilitate the sharing of symbol-based content between different symbol users using different symbol language systems. It will also enable symbols to be converted into text and vice versa. This might mean, for example, that a person who uses AAC could open an Internet bank account by completing an on-line form using their own symbol system. The vision of concept coding is that instead of images and symbols having to be transferred from one computer to another, it is possible to share a unique code designating the meaning of the symbol needing to be transferred. In addition to efficiency in handling images used for communication purposes, this concept would also allow personalised or idiosyncratic symbols specific to one person to be used by them in Internet-based communication. An open source concept coding, in combination with more accessible and usable software, is the driving force behind the WWAAC project

Effects of pretreatments of Napier Grass with deionized water, sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide on pyrolysis oil characteristics

The depletion of fossil fuel reserves has led to increasing interest in liquid bio-fuel from renewable biomass. Biomass is a complex organic material consisting of different degrees of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, extractives and minerals. Some of the mineral elements tend to retard conversions, yield and selectivity during pyrolysis processing. This study is focused on the extraction of mineral retardants from Napier grass using deionized water, dilute sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid and subsequent pyrolysis in a fixed bed reactor. The raw biomass was characterized before and after each pretreatment following standard procedure. Pyrolysis study was conducted in a fixed bed reactor at 600 o�C, 30 �C/min and 30 mL/min N2 flow. Pyrolysis oil (bio-oil) collected was analyzed using standard analytic techniques. The bio-oil yield and characteristics from each pretreated sample were compared with oil from the non-pretreated sample. Bio-oil yield from the raw sample was 32.06 wt% compared to 38.71, 33.28 and 29.27 wt% oil yield recorded from the sample pretreated with sulfuric acid, deionized water and sodium hydroxide respectively. GC–MS analysis of the oil samples revealed that the oil from all the pretreated biomass had more value added chemicals and less ketones and aldehydes. Pretreatment with neutral solvent generated valuable leachate, showed significant impact on the ash extraction, pyrolysis oil yield, and its composition and therefore can be regarded as more appropriate for thermochemical conversion of Napier grass

Seven HCI Grand Challenges

This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address. A perspective oriented to humane and social values is adopted, formulating the challenges in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Seven Grand Challenges are identified and presented in this article: Human-Technology Symbiosis; Human-Environment Interactions; Ethics, Privacy and Security; Well-being, Health and Eudaimonia; Accessibility and Universal Access; Learning and Creativity; and Social Organization and Democracy. Although not exhaustive, they summarize the views and research priorities of an international interdisciplinary group of experts, reflecting different scientific perspectives, methodological approaches and application domains. Each identified Grand Challenge is analyzed in terms of: concept and problem definition; main research issues involved and state of the art; and associated emerging requirements