A-cross: An accessible crossword puzzle for visually impaired users

Abstract

Crossword puzzles are a very popular word game, with high recreational and educational value, which can also be used as mental work-out tools, assisting in the prevention of age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Despite their high value and although users with visual impairments constitute an important market share, there are only few accessible crossword puzzles. Even these, however, are limited in providing alternative input and output modalities for users with disabilities and do not support equitable use, simplicity and intuitiveness, especially for blind users. This paper presents A-Cross, an accessible crossword puzzle for visually impaired users, aiming to support word solving in a novel and usable way. The evaluation process that was followed in order to assess the usability and accessibility of a functional yet early prototype of the A-Cross puzzle is also described. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.