by the guest editors Christine Azevedo Coste (Inria) and Barbara Leporini (ISTI-CNR)

People with disabilities and special needs may encounter difficulties in performing activities of daily living (ADLs), which affects their quality of life. Therefore, they have always sought alternative solutions and ways to be as autonomous as possible in performing activities of daily living in different areas such as education, work and even leisure and entertainment. Technology has opened up previously unthinkable scenarios by providing software and hardware that can compensate for the possible limitations of people with disabilities. There would be many examples we could cite for many categories of users.

by Christine Azevedo Coste (Inria) and Roger Pissard-Gibollet (Inria)

A model of a frugal, replicable and open-source technological innovation approach to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities by developing technical aids for an individual and making them accessible to the greatest number.
Humanlab Inria (HLI)

by Markus Tauber and Benedikt Gollan (Research Studios Austria FG), Christoph Schmittner (Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH) and Thomas Ballhausen (University Mozarteum Salzburg)

In this paper we propose an approach to use assistive technologies beyond traditional Ambient Assisting Living Setups for a more accessible and inclusive society. This supports including and involving elderly people via sharing of cultural content and linking it to individual biographies and supporting the work of caregivers who require this information to support their patients more adequately.

by Paul Isaris (SciFY PNPC), George Giannakopoulos (SciFY PNPC), Alexandros Tzoumas (SciFY PNPC)

Health-related news articles have become increasingly significant during the past few years, especially in crisis times. Their impact can be significant, to communicate critical knowledge, but also to bend the truth and provoke unwanted reactions from the public, or even reduce the efficacy of large-scale health efforts. However, Artificial Intelligence can support the reader when evaluating news items related to health by summarising different views on the same subject into a single, non-redundant summary. Such tools can change the way we interact with health news sources, help us build trust, and empower our verification capacity.

by Christophe Ponsard (CETIC) and Ward Desmet (Computer Museum NAM-IP)

Museums play a key cultural role through the immersive experience they provide. Their accessibility for all was threatened by the COVID-19 lockdowns. In response, many museums, including our Computer Museum, have accelerated their digital transformation for improved online or hybrid experiences, with benefits for accessibility but also possibly new barriers to address.

by Hui-Yin Wu (Centre Inria d’Université Côte d’Azur, France), Aurélie Calabrèse (Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS, LPC, France), and Pierre Kornprobst (Centre Inria d’Université Côte d’Azur, France)

The Inria Biovision team has been working on designing accessible news-reading experiences in virtual reality (VR) for low-vision patients. We present the advantages of VR as well as design principles based on clinical studies of low-vision reading and newspaper design. This is realised through a novel VR toolbox that can be customised to create a personalised and accessible news-reading environment.

by Manuela Hürlimann (Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Zurich University of Applied Sciences), Jolanda Galbier (Pro Audito Schweiz) and Mark Cieliebak (Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Zurich University of Applied Sciences)

Hard-of-hearing people face challenges in daily interactions that involve spoken language, such as meetings or doctor’s visits. Automatic speech recognition technology can support them by providing a written transcript of the conversation. Pro Audito Schweiz, the Swiss federation of hard-of-hearing people, and the Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAI) at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) conducted a preliminary study into the use of Speech-to-Text (STT) for this target group. Our survey among the members of Pro Audito found that there is large interest in using automated solutions for better understanding in everyday situations. We now propose to take the next step and develop an application which uses ZHAW’s high-quality STT models.

by Olivier Parisot, Pierrick Bruneau, Patrik Hitzelberger (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), Gilles Krebs and Christophe Destruel (Vaonis)

Electronically Assisted Astronomy allows near-real-time generation of enhanced views of deep sky objects like nebulae and galaxies. This approach is ideal for people who have difficulty with direct observation through a telescope, especially those who have poor visual acuity or physical difficulties with positioning oneself correctly in front of the instrument.

by Andreas Papalambrou, Christos Palaiologos and John Gialelis (University of Patras)

A team at University of Patras developed a software that gives students and educators, with special emphasis on the disabled and the visually impaired, the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the natural sciences such as astronomy and geology.

by Barbara Leporini ISTI-CNR & I.Ri.Fo.R., Marina Buzzi IIT-CNR and Luca Baldini Editoriale Campi

This study investigates how to exploit technologies for making society more inclusive by increasing the usability of artefacts that may be not accessible to people with disabilities. Accessing everyday objects can be a challenge for blind and visually impaired people. Although digital calendars are available, a tangible paper-based calendar can be more suitable or preferred by users, in specific contexts. Such a calendar should be as inclusive as possible. This paper shares the experience of designing an inclusive paper-based calendar conceived in codesign sessions with blind and visually impaired users.

by Maria Teresa Paratore (ISTI-CNR) and Barbara Leporini (ISTI-CNR)

The aim of this study, which is currently underway, is to investigate how the haptic channel can be effectively exploited in a mobile app devoted to visually impaired users, for the preliminary exploration of a complex indoor environment, such as a shopping mall.

by Letizia Angileri, Marco Manca, Fabio Paternò, Carmen Santoro (ISTI-CNR)

PlayToPickUp is a serious game that stimulates children in the relevant cognitive aspects (attention, planning task and error monitoring) while performing tasks that replicate the activities of daily life, such as preparing the backpack, recognising money or emotions.

by Eleonora Zedda (University of Pisa and ISTI-CNR ), Marco Manca and Fabio Paternò (ISTI-CNR)

Serious games in humanoid robots have an interesting potential to help older adults with cognitive stimulation in non-pharmacological treatments. Additionally, exploiting the multimodal possibilities of the humanoid robots in such a way to provide them with a personality can be suitable to improve users' engagement, and thus their potential participation in cognitive training programs.

by Hélène Sauzéon, Pascal Guitton and Pierre-Antoine Cinquin (Inria)

For an equal access to education and more particularly since the COVID crisis, there is a huge need for accessible Massive Open Online Course  (MOOC) players for people with cognitive impairment. Aïana is a new accessible MOOC player, which has been co-designed by the stakeholders (learners with cognitive impairment, teachers, accessibility designers, etc) and assessed with a field study without an equivalent in the literature, including learners with and without disabilities. Early interactions (with accessibility features), participation, learning and learner experience supported our contribution to designing a more inclusive e-learning environment.

by Constantine Stephanidis, Stavroula Ntoa, George Margetis and Margherita Antona (FORTH-ICS)

The advent of intelligent environments brings several challenges for the design of universally accessible interactions; however, it also bears novel opportunities. Given the importance of inclusive intelligent environments, we propose a methodology for designing interactions in such environments that are universally accessible.

by Dennis Paulino (INESC TEC and University of Trás-os Montes e Alto Douro), João Barroso (INESC TEC and University of Trás-os Montes e Alto Douro) and Hugo Paredes (INESC TEC and University of Trás-os Montes e Alto Douro)

This article discusses the potential of including people with autism in digital work, giving them an opportunity to have personalised and remunerated work. The authors of this article are working in cognitive personalisation of microtasks (a simple form of digital work) so it can be adapted the digital work’s assumptions to the worker abilities. A planned case study will include people with autism, whereby their digital interactions in the microtasks will be recorded and used for the cognitive personalisation.

by Wilco Fiers (Deque Systems Europe)

Web accessibility is a hot topic these days. The EU’s Web Accessibility Directive requires governments throughout the EU to build websites and apps that are accessible for people with disabilities. Over the next few years, the European Accessibility Act will mean similar requirements will apply to private businesses as well.

by Christos Alexakos (Industrial Systems Institute/ATHENA RC), Ignatios Fotiou (TOBEA) and Panagiotis Konstantinopoulos (Computer Technology Institute and Press "Diophantus")

Modern technology achievements, such as the rail-based infrastructure of SEATRAC© allow people with kinetic disabilities to enjoy access to the sea. In the project SMART SEATRAC, we empowered the existing supporting autonomous access to the sea infrastructure with an embedded data aggregation system, connected with various sensors to collect and transmit information to the end-users, presenting them, in near real-time, the conditions on the beach to assist them in their decision.

by Cristina Farmaki, Matthew Pediaditis, and Vangelis Sakkalis (ICS-FORTH)

Unlocking the true potential of assistive rehabilitation technologies heavily depends on their adaptive potential to match the special needs and abilities of people in need. Previous attempts in advancing brain-computer interfacing (BCI) technologies promise an alternative communication path, but do they actually contribute towards social inclusion or are they for demonstration purposes only?

by Christian Thomay and Benedikt Gollan (Research Studios Austria FG) and Erich Heil (tech2People)

The physical therapy centre of the future contains a variety of robotic assistance systems, allowing an increasing range of patients access to individualised rehabilitation therapy. However, novel, holistic approaches are needed to combine heterogeneous data from such different devices into a consistent digital twin that encompasses a patient’s circumstances and needs. tech2people and the Research Studios Austria FG aim to realise such a data-driven, digital therapy centre where data is combined and analysed using Big Data and AI methods, allowing for precise insight into, and forecast of, therapy progress for both therapists and patients.

by Christine Azevedo Coste (Inria), David Guiraud (NEURINNOV) and Charles Fattal (Centre Bouffard-Vercelli, USSAP)

The objective of our research is to provide different hand movements using only two epineural electrodes implanted above the elbow in individuals with hand paralysis. Each multi-contact cuff electrode can be configured to electrically stimulate different fascicles of the nerve, eliciting the contraction of different muscles. The user controls the neuroprosthesis by executing stereotyped movements or activating muscle contractions that are interpreted by the piloting interface as orders to trigger the stimulation. Two participants with complete tetraplegia were implanted with two electrodes for 28 days and were able to grasp different types of objects for the first time since their spinal cord injury.

by Ioulietta Lazarou, Lampros Mpaltadoros, Fotis Kalaganis, Kostas Georgiadis, Spiros Nikolopoulos, Ioannis (Yiannis) Kompatsiaris (Centre for Research & Technology Hellas – Information Technologies Institute - CERTH-ITI)

Recent advancements in the fields of bio-signal processing, computer vision and wearables empower the independence of people with physical and cognitive disabilities.