Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• The second tool, under the trademark Nu!Reha*, is a digital desk with a software
platform created for the implementation of telerehabilitation services in European
countries. The Nu!Reha Desk can supply personalized exercises to be executed at
home by users in a distant, monitored manner. The main technical feature is con-
stituted by an asynchronous link between the home system (portable unit) and the
professional installation, which allows off-line data monitoring and configuration
of the exercise.
16.2 The Simplification of the World Wide Web for Disabled
Users: The WhatsOnWeb Search Engine
16.2.1 Introduction
Computers have become an essential and increasingly pervasive tool in everyday life, in
both the professional and the personal entertainment spheres. Unfortunately, disabled
people, face serious difficulties in using traditional input or output devices such as key-
boards, mice, or screens because such devices require precise abilities to accomplish even
the simplest tasks. Think for example of the use of the hands for the mouse or the use of
the eyes for reading the screen.
In this section, we describe emerging human-computer interaction paradigms that are
based on sophisticated diagrammatic interfaces that aim to overcome some of the limita-
tions of the existing approaches to make computer applications accessible for impaired
people. We concentrate on the simple but rather common task of searching the Web.
Although the general theory behind the described approach is unique, we distinguish
between diagrammatic interfaces for the visually impaired and motion-impaired people.
This distinction depends on the fact that visually impaired people have major problems
with traditional output devices whereas motion-impaired people cannot easily use input
devices. In the rest of this introduction, we shortly recall the state of the art about the most
commonly used devices and technologies; we also highlight their main shortcomings.
The assistive technologies proposed in the literature for visually impaired people have
to translate the information to be conveyed to the user into forms that can be received
by the user with senses distinct from the view, such as touch or hearing. The success of
Braille-based interfaces (Roberts et al. 2000) have been limited in the past both because of
the low levels of Braille literacy (some estimates are 20%) and the high cost of refreshable
Braille displays (Zhao et al. 2008) The most popular technologies for blind people are those
based on screen readers (Slatin and Rush 2003) because they have low costs, short training
time, and do not require additional hardware. A screen reader is a software program that
provides synthesized speech, representing what appears on the screen and alternative
text provided by the application. Although the solutions based on screen readers are very
effective in many situations, they present also some limitations. Firstly, a screen reader can
easily translate textual informations into speech, but it may be difficult to convey graphical
information (pictures, charts, or diagrams). Secondly, the time necessary to read the screen
content can be very long and therefore the interaction between the user and the computer
applications can be slowed down. For example, consider the task of searching a web page
*
Nu!Reha is a trademark of Pragma Engineering srl.
