The Ecosystem’s Involvement in the Appropriation Phase of Assistive Technology: Choice and Adjustment of Interaction Techniques

Abstract

Designing assistive technologies for the benefit of a population of multi-disabled users living in specialized care homes involves the implementation of a user-centered approach (UCD). The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the ecosystem also plays a key role in the codesign and appropriation phases of a augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), mainly in the choice and adjustment of interaction techniques through a case study. Firstly, we present related works on the codesign of assistive technologies. Then, we will describe the SoKeyTo platform used for the codesign by the human-computer interaction team. We will also explain the collaboration between the ecosystem and HCI team during tests (place of the switch and type of scanning). Usability criteria were used to determine these choices. Finally, we will illustrate our approach in the codesign and appropriation activities of layout and interaction modes of the AAC.

User Centred Method to Design a Platform to Design Augmentative and Alternative Communication Assistive Technologies

“…It includes psychophysical models (Fitts [9], Hick-Hyman [10], [11] and Card [12]) for people with motor impairments that provide indicators of whether the interface is suitable for these people profiles. SoKeyTo was/is used by researchers in human-computer interaction for the design of augmentative and alternative communication interfaces [13]. A lot of back and forth between therapists and researchers were therefore necessary to design customized AAC.…”

“…Example of applications AAC [13] : Example of communication page : white background Communication button, yellow background, navigation color.…”

“…The Pic-toCom platform [18] is the closest to the SoKeyTo platform because it includes the home automation and communication aspect in the AAC. A strong point is the ability of SoKeyTo to configure several scanning strategies [13] and to allow to associate several communication protocols to a button. This allows a priori to control many connected objects or applications that a person with a disability could use to increase his autonomy.…”

“…This visual representation is associated with the list of pages. As the number of pages for a AAC can reach more than 50 pages [13], the question of representation and handling will have to be addressed by evaluating the techniques of Fisheye tree views and lenses for graph visualization [29] and of tree map [30] which consists of dividing the interface into several zones by giving more space to the focus. Scanning strategy.…”