Designing user interfaces for content simplification aimed at people with cognitive impairments

Abstract

Cognitive accessibility aims to make content more accessible for people with cognitive impairments, such as the elderly and people with intellectual and learning disabilities. In this sense, it is possible to design an accessible user interface from a cognitive point of view. As a contribution, this article presents cognitive accessibility design patterns and their application in designing the Easier web system's user interface. The Easier web system provides a tool that assists in the understanding and readability of text content geared towards people with intellectual disabilities. It detects complex words and offers easier replacements and other resources such as a definition of the complex word. In addition to applying the design patterns, user tests with people with intellectual disabilities and older people have been carried out to evaluate the cognitive accessibility of the Easier system's interface. The results indicate that people with cognitive impairments know how to use the interfaces and have a satisfactory experience. In addition, a design proposal to provide a glossary mechanism to be used in web interfaces with simplified texts is presented and validated.