Providing context-sensitive mobile assistance for people with disabilities in the workplace

Abstract

Recent research has shown that computer-based Assistive Technology (AT) has the potential to support individuals with disabilities in production environments. At the same time, step-by-step instructions enable workers to be successful in their performance of industrial tasks that were formerly difficult to accomplish. We merged these two types of intervention and developed an application running on a mobile device that can assist disabled workers working more independently. In an evaluation study, we investigated how our assistive system affects the task efficiency as well as participants’ subjective evaluation. Results show advantages when using the assistive prototype with regard to users’ task efficiency and subjective evaluations.