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Digital systems for independent aging, support and care are not being adopted as hoped. The purpose of this paper is to examine the results of three studies to derive key factors during the development and engineering process of care and support systems for older people that can impact acceptance and uptake to provide support to future projects.

The paper analyzed the results of three qualitative studies, including two detailed case studies and a further study with 35 participants, to derive key factors. Methods for deriving factors are based on thematic analysis to identify common factors across cases and participants.

The findings point to a broad set of interconnected factors that give developers of these types of systems specific recommendations. These highlight what makes these projects complex and identify implications for the development process. Furthermore, they show way the needed user-centered and iterative methods may be in conflict with funding processes.

While others have reported on single projects or looked at acceptance, these studies were the first to explore aspects of the development process that may contribute to the lack of success to date of these types of systems. The results here support more successful outcomes in the future, both by helping people involved in the development of these systems to avoid some of the issues others face and providing input to improve the performance of the engineering process.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance accessibility of graphical information in particular for blind and visually handicapped people.

Prototype development based on an intense analysis of the state of the art and potential technologies with later on heuristic analysis of different approaches to enrich graphical information for better accessibility.

A novel approach to enhance accessibility named “Intention Tree” for enhancing accessibility. It allows integrating descriptive and navigation information into standard Scalable Vector Graphics and also mechanisms to analyse and aggregate data.

The approach promises interesting new tools for better accessing and navigating graphical information with potential not only for blind and visually handicapped people.

Design prototype for further development.

Potential for better social inclusion and participation.

This paper presents a novel and new approach for enhanced accessibility and usability and a new technique for authoring graphical information.

The purpose of this paper is to bring together the fields of participatory design, design for all, accessible music, tangible interaction and musicking to propose musicking for all, where participants can take part on their own terms, with their own intentions, initiatives and interpretations. The goal is to promote well‐being and health among the participants.

Co‐creative tangibles to enable musicking for all have been created and evaluated in a research project. The paper uses the experiences so far in this project to propose “musicking for all”, based on the fields mentioned in “Purpose” above.

Participatory design, design for all and tangible interaction forms a promising basis for musicking for all. Challenges/paradoxes emerge when applying participatory design approaches to design work involving disabled children.

The paper contributes with an original view on musicking for disabled children, and proposes musicking for all based on the fields of research mentioned in “Purpose” above. The value in the contribution is a fresh view on co‐creative tangibles for disabled children, and a suggested way forward to improve health and well‐being for this user group.

The purpose of this paper is to describe recent progress on the “Crosswatch” project, a smartphone‐based system developed for providing guidance to blind and visually impaired travelers at traffic intersections. Building on past work on Crosswatch functionality to help the user achieve proper alignment with the crosswalk and read the status of walk lights to know when it is time to cross, the authors outline the directions Crosswatch is now taking to help realize its potential for becoming a practical system: namely, augmenting computer vision with other information sources, including geographic information systems (GIS) and sensor data, and inferring the user's location much more precisely than is possible through GPS alone, to provide a much larger range of information about traffic intersections to the pedestrian.

The paper summarizes past progress on Crosswatch and describes details about the development of new Crosswatch functionalities. One such functionality, which is required for determination of the user's precise location, is studied in detail, including the design of a suitable user interface to support this functionality and preliminary tests of this interface with visually impaired volunteer subjects.

The results of the tests of the new Crosswatch functionality demonstrate that the functionality is feasible in that it is usable by visually impaired persons.

While the tests that were conducted of the new Crosswatch functionality are preliminary, the results of the tests have suggested several possible improvements, to be explored in the future.

The results described in this paper suggest that the necessary technologies used by the Crosswatch system are rapidly maturing, implying that the system has an excellent chance of becoming practical in the near future.

The paper addresses an innovative solution to a key problem faced by blind and visually impaired travelers, which has the potential to greatly improve independent travel for these individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a local orientation and navigation framework based on visual features that provide location recognition, context augmentation, and viewer localization information to a blind or low‐vision user.

The authors consider three types of “visual noun” features: signage, visual‐text, and visual‐icons that are proposed as a low‐cost method for augmenting environments. These are used in combination with an RGB‐D sensor and a simplified SLAM algorithm to develop a framework for navigation assistance suitable for the blind and low‐vision users.

It was found that signage detection cannot only help a blind user to find a location, but can also be used to give accurate orientation and location information to guide the user navigating a complex environment. The combination of visual nouns for orientation and RGB‐D sensing for traversable path finding can be one of the cost‐effective solutions for navigation assistance for blind and low‐vision users.

This is the first step for a new approach in self‐localization and local navigation of a blind user using both signs and 3D data. The approach is meant to be cost‐effective but it only works in man‐made scenes where a lot of signs exist or can be placed and are relatively permanent in their appearances and locations.

Based on 2012 World Health Organization, 285 million people are visually impaired, of which 39 million are blind. This project will have a direct impact on this community.

Signage detection has been widely studied for assisting visually impaired people in finding locations, but this paper provides the first attempt to use visual nouns as visual features to accurately locate and orient a blind user. The combination of visual nouns with 3D data from an RGB‐D sensor is also new.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a scientific method for modelling human behavior, successfully applied in the context of Autism. Recording and sharing measurable data (on subjects’ performance) between caregivers guarantees consistency of learning programs and allows monitoring the learning enhancements. Data are usually recorded on paper, which requires considerable effort and is subject to error. The purpose of this paper is to describe a portable application developed to support ABA tutors in their work with autistic subjects. It allows gathering data from ABA sessions, giving tutors rapid access to information, also in graphical formats.

The tool was designed via participatory design. Various ABA team members were involved, in order to make the application respond perfectly to their needs. The approach aims to ensure maximum usability, while minimizing errors and ambient interference.

The use of mobile devices (i.e. tablets or smartphones) allows mobility and ease of interaction, enabling efficient data collection and processing. Data plotting allows one to easily interpret gathered data.

The proposed application, free open source software, can be a valuable aid for supporting the ABA intervention and favor the inclusion of children with autism.

Available software to assist tutors during therapy sessions is often proprietary, and research prototypes are not freely available, so paper forms are still widespread. Besides, without attention to usability requirements, assisting tools would be comparable in efficiency with data insertion on paper. Our software was specifically designed following ABA principles and favors efficient data entry allowing natural interaction with touch screen interfaces: drag and drop, taps and gestures. Furthermore, it is shared in the public domain.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how commercially‐off‐the‐shelf sensors and stimulators, such as infrared rangers and vibrators, can be retrofitted as a useful assistive technology in real and virtual environments.

The paper describes how a wearable range‐vibrotactile device is designed and tested in the real‐world setting, as well as thorough evaluations in a virtual environment for complicated navigation tasks and neuroscience studies.

In the real‐world setting, a person with normal vision who has to navigate their way around a room with their eyes closed will quickly rely on their arms and hands to explore the room. The authors’ device allows a person to “feel” their environment without touching it. Due to inherent difficulties in testing human subjects when navigating a real environment, a virtual environment affords us an opportunity to scientifically and extensively test the prototype before deploying the device in the real‐world.

This project serves as a starting‐point for further research in benchmarking assistive technology for the visually impaired and to eventually develop a man‐machine sensorimotor model that will improve current state‐of‐the‐art technology, as well as a better understanding of neural coding in the human brain.

Based on 2012 World Health Organization, there are 39 million blind people. This project will have a direct impact on this community.

The paper demonstrates a low cost design of assistive technology that has been tested and evaluated in real and virtual environments, as well as integration of sensor designs and neuroscience.

For students who are blind or visually impaired, technology enables greater access to the educational curriculum, immediate and independent access to information, and full participation in community and citizenship. This chapter reviews research on technology use by students with visual impairments, and highlights effective practices, promising developments, and ongoing challenges. The authors discuss the implications of these advancements on policy, instruction, professional development, and future research.