The role of accessibility for acceptance and usage of an internet-based speech intervention

Abstract

Within a collaborative effort of technicians, speech therapists and psychologists “ISi-Speech” has been developed as an Internet-based speech-training tool. This tool aims at improving the speech of people with degenerative neurological impairments such as acquired dysarthria in, for example, Parkinson’s Disease. ISi-Speech is characterized by a theory based design of training elements which take specific challenges in speech therapy as well as motivational elements into account. To ensure acceptance and long-time usage of a training system members of the target group have been involved in the design and formative evaluation process at various times in the project. Specifically, we focus on accessibility as one elementary factor of technology acceptance. Based upon the concept of the Universal-Design and Web-Accessibility-Guidelines 2.0 we implemented accessibility requirements that will be introduced and discussed in this paper.