Public Funding for Dolphin Computer Access Limited

The risk of many health conditions (e.g., diabetes, dementia, AMD) can be mitigated and the conditions managed in part by living a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, the incidence of healthrelated concerns amongst blind and visually impaired (VI) people is higher than that of the general population. Devices (e.g., generic wearables such as Fitbit and Jawbone, and more specific devices such as heart monitors) and associated apps for smartphones/tablets exist to collect and monitor health-related information in support of guided healthier lifestyles and monitored wellbeing. Such technologies are not sympathetic to the accessibility needs of blind/VI people, meaning that a core subset of the population which could significantly benefit from the use of these technologies is currently excluded from their effective use. The focus of the aHealth project is to develop an innovative technology that will act as an accessibility layer or service for existing health and wellbeing-related technologies such that they are made accessible to blind/VI people. The aHealth project will: 1) adopt innovative participatory methods to identify and respond to the requirements of people blind/VI and engage them directly in the design of (2); and 2) develop a unified accessibility service which enables the blind/VI community to access and thus benefit from existing and future health technologies. The use of participatory design will empower members of the target market to help direct health technologies that are of value to them, leading to greater long term technology acceptance. The accessibility service will enable blind/VI people to finally realise all the benefits afforded by health technologies with anticipated positive impact on their health (eye and related), independence and wellbeing. Longer term, it is anticipated that the accessibility service will support social and collaborative networks that will also offer appropriate at-adistance community support.

SafeReads – embedded, personalised reading strategies for learners with dyslexia In school age groups alone 800,000 people are affected by dyslexia with persistent reading and spelling difficulties throughout their education. Supporting learners with dyslexia is increasingly challenging at a time when decentralisation through academy status is becoming more popular, funding for special education needs is being decreased, and lower grade staff are assuming specialist teaching responsibilities. This creates a greater demand for reliable teaching resources to address the needs of learners with dyslexia across the UK. The proposed project will design a productivity tool called SafeReads. SafeReads will be targeted to children with dyslexia transitioning from Key Stage 2 to 3 (ages 8-14), a crucial point in children’s education as they shift from learning to read to reading to learn. SafeReads will support children in recognising problems with reading; it will teach them to use strategies so that they cope with these problems; it will help them learn how to monitor their own progress. The outcome of this learning process will be the development of skills critical to children’s academic success and lifelong learning. SafeReads will be available to install as a plugin that operates across different applications and devices (e.g. word processing tools, web browsers) covering the wide range of contexts involved in literacy. It will be designed for independent use as well as use with teaching assistants, teachers and parents who will have access to an interactive portal where they can share best practices with SafeReads, supporting them in their role to help children overcome their difficulties. Moreover, SafeReads will be usable and simple in order to accommodate the attention, organisation and memory problems that children with dyslexia often have. This simplicity will be in part achieved through the application of artificial intelligence approaches that will automatically diagnose a child’s weaknesses and strengths, and adapt the potentially vast content of the tool to match their profile. A final feature of SafeReads will be its collaborative nature. Alongside a pool of reading strategies provided by experts and made available through SafeReads, children will be encouraged and supported to develop their own. We hope this will foster a ‘can do’ attitude and improve children’s confidence in their abilities. A strong participatory ethos will drive the SafeReads design process. Our team will co-design the technology with children, teaching assistants, parents, special education needs coordinators, specialist teachers and IT administrators. This process will ensure the tool is grounded in a sound pedagogical foundation, addresses the needs of both primary and secondary users, supports best practice implementation, and is technically feasible.

The aPad project will undertake development of a prototype device for the provision of accessibility software. This will address Vision Impaired (VI) access to reading materials available on ‘tablet-form’ devices as mainstream computer devices are difficult to use by someone who is not technically proficient and who has accessibility needs. Therefore a new generation of accessibility capability is required for mobile devices. The innovation activities are to: a) Overcome the identified constraints on the features required of tablet devices so that a generic accessibility software application can provide the required support for vision-impaired users; b) Address the problems of text/audio synchronisation in the delivery of EPUB3 (the international standard for eBooks) based content; c) Address the problems of making a web browsing experience as easy as possible for someone with restricted vision and where the features in web pages do not facilitate accessibility; d) Provide federated search, using the appropriate metadata in EPUB3 as provided for accessibility-enabled content, so that the appropriate books can be obtained. Successful deployment of VI accessibility software on ‘tablet-form’ devices will: a) Ensure that VI people can cross the digital divide and have affordable, mobile and userfriendly access to the Internet and relevant digital content. This will have significant social benefits in terms of greater mobility, increased integration into society, improved self-esteem and self-sufficiency; b) Enable providers of print-based content delivery devices to include this new accessibility software in their device and so ensure that the devices are accessibility-enabled. This will have economic benefits as well as social benefits through the reduction in CD production and packaging. The key deliverables are the evaluation of the new accessibility enabled applications through Prototype demonstrators using Android-based tablet devices.

The Accessibility Breakthrough for Low-vision and Elderly Sectors (ABLES) Project will undertake research into identifying the technology problems that must be resolved before accessibility software that addresses the vision and print impairments can be readily deployed on mobile and consumer devices. Mainstream computer devices are difficult to use by someone who is not technically proficient and who has accessibility needs. Therefore a new generation of accessibility capability is required for mobile and consumer devices. The objectives of the ABLES project are to: a) Establish the constraints on the form and features required of mobile and consumer devices so that a generic accessibility software application can provide the required support for vision and print impaired users; b) Investigate the problems of creating a solution for a wide range of mobile and consumer devices, including Set-top Boxes and Smart Televisions; c) Address the problems of making a web browsing experience as easy as possible for someone with restricted vision and where the features in web pages do not facilitate accessibility; d) Establish the range of service and business models that could be suited to creating a sustainable market with a particular focus on support for elderly readers of digital books. Successful research into, and deployment of, vision and print impairment accessibility software on mobile and consumer devices will: a) Ensure that people with vision and print impairments will not become digitally disenfranchised in a world in which digital access to information will dominate; b) Enable providers of print-based content delivery devices to include this new accessibility software in their device and so ensure that the devices are accessibility-enabled. The key deliverable from this six-month research project is the evaluation of the new accessibility enabled, mobile-device hosted applications in a Proof of Concept demonstrator using Windows-based tablet devices.

The aim of the METALL (Metadata enabled Tools for Assistive Living and Learning) project is to demonstrate how access to on-demand/just in time accessibility specific text-based digital content can be significantly improved using a metadata-enabled workflow. The objectives are to: (1) demonstrate that it is possible to create a federated Content Management System (CMS) that specialises in the provision of content suited to vision impaired and dyslexic users; (2) show how accessible-specific and other metadata can be used to ensure that a user always obtains text-originated conent that is transformed to suit the accessibility preferences of the user; (3) demonstrate that the new CMS and its accompanying open accessible content conversion tool can support a wide range of learning management systems as used in education and training institutions; (4) show that the same CMS can be used to support a wide range of elderly-specific applications.