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Mobile communication for intellectually challenged people: a proposed set of requirements for interface design on touch screen devices
Communications in Mobile Computing
Mobile communication for intellectually challenged people: a proposed set of requirements for interface design on touch screen devices
Zelai Saenz de Urturi Breton
Fernando Jorge Hernández
Amaia Méndez Zorrilla
Begoña García Zapirain
The use of certain applications for touch-based mobile devices can prove to be difficult for intellectually challenged people. By performing tests and gathering user feedback, great difficulty has been detected in the use of various applications due to their complicated interfaces. The authors propose a set of guidelines, aimed at developers, to help design more accessible interfaces when developing applications for intellectually challenged, so this might increase the overall ease of use of mobile devices.
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Introduction
Mobile phones have become an unmissable tool in society’s everyday life. According to
the study published by Telefonica (European broadband and telecommunications
company) [1], nearly 74% of people with an intellectual disability aged 15-64 own or use a
mobile phone.
Additionally the number of touch-enabled smartphone devices has increased
considerably in recent years [2], as well as the number of existing applications for operating
systems.
When developers create a new application, it usually follows the basic rules of user
interface design, which sometimes implies an accessibility problem, especially for
people with intellectual disabilities, due to some specific designs.
An Intellectual disability is a broad concept encompassing various intellectual deficits,
i.e. individuals who are mentally challenged [3], have specific learning disabilities or suffer
from problems acquired later in life through sustained brain injuries or neurodegenerative
diseases like dementia [4].
Most individuals with Down Syndrome (DS) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) also have an
intellectual disability [5,6], such as reading or listening problems [7], and as a
consequence, these groups may have additional limitations when it comes to interface
interaction, which makes their use of a smartphone even more difficult. Users of this group have
detected issues related to the mobile displays: buttons are too small causing them to push
wrong numbers and letters frequently, non-user-friendly menu arrangement and unclear
instructions on how to find and use some functions (such as: how to zoom in on the
screen).
One possible cause of this problem might be due to the functional impairment
experienced by the class of disabled mobile phone users. The nature of this problem is
inherently complex and results in difficulty grasping the underlying problems, which in
turn leads to a lack of understanding among mobile phone designers and developers.
One possible approach to the problems disabled mobile phone users experience is to
add additional requirements to the development of mobile phones. The specific set of
requirements needed can be found by involving intellectually challenged users in the
design process starting at the requirement stage and ideally throughout the entire
development phase as well. Some testing has been done to understand the problems
related to their mobile phone use. Specifically, this article seeks to answer the following
two research questions:
1. What are the difficulties that intellectually challenged people face when using mobile phones?
2. What are the characteristics of a disability-friendly mobile interface?
Testing
The users chosen by the experts to participate in the evaluation are 10 adults, both
male and female. As users with AS or DS, the degree of intellectual disability for them
is classified as being between moderate and mild disability according to the WHO
(World Health Organization) [8].
Testing was performed in three sessions which lasted around 3 hours in a ‘neutral’
location. This was believed to be helpful for avoiding either negative or positive
associations with a particular site or building: the meeting room of the FSDPV (Basque
Country Down Syndrome’s Association) and APNABI (Association of Parents of
individuals with Autism in Bizkaia) associations.
To perform the test, three smartphones and two tablets (with 7” and 10” screens)
were used and the results were obtained after observing the interaction of the
participants with a sequence set of applications developed by the experts [9], Google Maps
and a text-filled screen, i.e. SMS (Short Message Service).
Problems experienced
Combining experts’ observations, opinions and experiences, the problems intellectually
challenged users might experience when using touch screen mobile phones are
illustrated in the Table 1.
Characteristics of a disability mobile interface
The proposed set of requirements is described below:
Eliminate non-essential images/buttons/functions: Be critical of the purpose of
any image/button/function. Is it just there purely for aesthetic purposes or does it
convey a practical one?
Components like images, buttons or text boxes must be o (...truncated)