Accessible UI design and multimodal interaction through hybrid TV platforms: Towards a virtual-user centered design framework

Abstract

We report on work towards an architecture that incorporates accessible design methods, guidelines and support tools for building and testing adaptive and accessible user interfaces (UI) for users with mild impairments. We especially address interaction constraints for elderly people, both during application design time and at run time, targeting on hybrid TV platforms. The functional principle of our architecture is twofold: At runtime, it lets users interact with hybrid TV applications through an ensemble of accessible UIs that cover different input and output modalities and are jointly adapted via user profiles and real-time feedback. At design time, it allows developers to re-use UIs and representative user personas in simulating the effect of the UI modalities on different impairments. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.