Skip to main content

ACCESS+: Designing a Museum Application for People with Intellectual Disabilities

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13341))

Abstract

Inclusive solutions are essential to improve the user experience and overall accessibility. They contribute to the independence and participation of people with disabilities and can be designed for a wide variety of contexts. In this paper, we describe a design cycle from ideation to testing and redesign of ACCESS+, an accessible application to navigate through museum content focusing on people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID). We have focused on personalized and inclusive features so that users could tailor to their needs and preferences icons and font sizes, labels, and backgrounds. Also, users could make sense of the text by looking at symbols via Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), and by listening to text-to-speech of full text with highlight, tone, and pitch configuration. Finally, users could provide different forms of feedback: ratings and comments. We conducted heuristic evaluations with an educator and a psychologist, both specialists in inclusive education, redesigning the interface and moving from a system to a user-friendly terminology. We also followed the specialists’ suggestions and made the icons and text of the UI more accessible.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Mobile Accessibility: How wcag 2.0 and other w3c/wai guidelines apply to mobile (2015). https://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-accessibility-mapping/#other-w3c-wai-guidelines-related-to-mobile

  2. ARASAAC: Aragonese center of augmentative and alternative communication. https://arasaac.org/

  3. Dekelver, J., Kultsova, M., Shabalina, O., Borblik, J., Pidoprigora, A., Romanenko, R.: Design of mobile applications for people with intellectual disabilities. Creat. Intell. Technol. Data Sci. 535, 823–836 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Google: Flutter - build apps for any screen. https://flutter.dev/

  5. Mariger, H.: Cognitive disabilities and the web: where accessibility and usability meet. National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) Resources (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Mastrogiuseppe, M., Soares Guedes, L., Span, S., Clementi, P., Landoni, M.: Reconceptualizing inclusion in museum spaces: a multidisciplinary framework. In: ICERI2021 Proceedings, 14th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, IATED, pp. 7225–7233 (November 2021). https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2021.1620

  7. Mastrogiuseppe, M., Span, S., Bortolotti, E.: Improving accessibility to cultural heritage for people with intellectual disabilities: a tool for observing the obstacles and facilitators for the access to knowledge. Alter 15(2), 113–123 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alter.2020.06.016, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875067220300651

  8. Sitbon, L., Farhin, S.: Co-designing interactive applications with adults with intellectual disability: a case study. In: Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, OZCHI 2017, pp. 487–491. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2017). https://doi.org/10.1145/3152771.3156163

  9. Soares Guedes, L.: Designing multisensory experiences for users with different reading abilities visiting a museum. SIGACCESS Access. Comput. (129) (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3458055.3458058

  10. Soares Guedes, L., Landoni, M.: Meeting participants with intellectual disabilities during covid-19 pandemic: challenges and improvisation. In: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS 2021. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3441852.3476566

  11. Sutherland, D., et al.: Survey of AAC needs for adults with intellectual disability in New Zealand. J. Dev. Phys. Disabil. 26(1), 115–122 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank SNSF, USI and its UROP Internship program for funding this research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leandro Soares Guedes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Soares Guedes, L., Ferrari, V., Mastrogiuseppe, M., Span, S., Landoni, M. (2022). ACCESS+: Designing a Museum Application for People with Intellectual Disabilities. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G., Mavrou, K., Manduchi, R., Covarrubias Rodriguez, M., Penáz, P. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP-AAATE 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13341. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08648-9_49

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08648-9_49

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08647-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08648-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics