Towards the Use of Ontologies for Improving User Interaction for People

with Special NeedsShuaib Karim, A Min Tjoa

(skarim, amin@ifs.tuwien.ac.at)Institute of Software Technology & Interactive

Systemshttp://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/

Vienna University of Technology

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 2

Outline

• Motivation• Introduction• Accessibility requirements• Proposed Solution• Conclusion

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 3

Motivation

Ability to store user’s personal information items in our prototype with the facility to make annotations leads to our next step – “make the system accessible for people with special needs”

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 4

The existing situation

We have different types of:• User impairments (blindness, hearing

problems, motor problems, cognitive problems, etc)

• Interface characteristics (text, sound, UI widgets and their behavior, etc)

• Accessibility guidelines – recommends UI according to impairments

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 5

– Providing alternate text for the pictures– Avoiding certain colors for the color blind– Avoiding complex table layout for the

blind– Difficulty in interaction by

mouse/keyboard due to motor problems– Difficulty in system behavior recall due to

cognitive problems etc.

Every impairment requires a renewed effort for providing accessibility

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 6

Impairments severity may change over time

– Voice feedback (beep, alarm) would no more work if hearing impairment is introduced or becomes more severe

– Response of tactile feedback will change with severity of motor problems

– Cognitive problems may increase over time etc.

A corresponding change of system behavior over time is required in these cases

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 7

One impairment may have consequences on another

– Color blind + motor problems– Color blind + cognitive problems (for

example difficulty in comprehension)Consider the case when a human operator

is suffering from either of the above combinations, and he/she has to take quick action to respond (for example in call centre scenario)

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 8

User Interface characteristics

• Text – size, color, font• Sound – volume, pitch, ...• UI components – text field, button, scrollbar,

...• Certain UI components go well with each

other and not with all• Interface characteristics evolve over time

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 9

Accessibility guidelines• WCAG make web content (Document Content, Structure,

and Presentation) accessible to people with disabilities1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory & visual co

ntent.

2. Don't rely on color alone. 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly. 4. Clarify natural language usage 5. Create tables that transform gracefully. 6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies

transform gracefully. 7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content

changes.

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 10

8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.

9. Design for device-independence. 10. Use interim solutions. 11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines. 12. Provide context and orientation information. 13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms. 14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple.

Focus mainly on vision and motor impairments. Other impairments are not significantly addresses which are equally important in today‘s interactive systems.

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 11

Our system is not just about web content! The primary information items in our prototype SemanticLIFE are:– Emails

– Browsed web pages– Chat sessions– Process state data– Appointments– Documents– File system monitor log

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 12

Associations between the primary information items

Some examples are:• Email e1 relatedWith File f1• File f1 relatedWith ProcessStateData p1• File f1 collaboratedWith Contact c1• WebPage w1 relatedWith Email e1• File f1 sharableWith Contact c1

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 13

Accessibility requirements for our system

• Present the primary information items and the already existing associations between those

• Explore and make new associations• Users may vary from normal users to a user

having some special needs• System should be accessible on multiple

devices• Conformance with WCAG guidelines

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 14

• Mapping information explicitly specified in ontology

• Explicit description of concepts is very helpful for people with special needs using system through assitive technology

• Semantic web technology can be applied using reasoners for making inefernce

• Sharable over the web

Proposed approach – ontology for Impairments and user interface characteristics

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 15

Human Disease

TreatmentCause

Chemotherapy

Drug Therapy

Surgery

Psychotherapy

Physiotherapy

Type

EnvironmentalGenetic

Symptom

Extension of ontology by “Hadzic M. and Chang E., Ontology-based Support for Human Disease Study, HICSS’05”

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 16

Approach followed – 1/4

• Purpose & scope: Provides mapping information bewteen the user‘s physical and cognitive impairments, and the user interface characteristics

• Possible interaction with other ontologies: DOID, UMLS, ICD9CM, MeSH

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 17

Approach followed – 2/4Sample user scenarios

• To avoid the confusing colors on an interface for a user with particular type of color blindness

• Font size adjustment according to user‘s visual acuity

• Information presentation on the better part of the screen for a user suffering from Hemianopsia (absence of vision in half of visual field)

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 18

Approach followed – 3/4Competency questions

• What is suitable font size for the user?• Which colored control buttons are suitable?• What is the most suitable screen area for

displaying information?• Which UI components are appropriate?

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 19

Approach followed – 4/4Impairments Taxonomy• Collection of important terms realted to

impairments• Find the relation between those terms and their

interconnections• A sample impairments taxonomy was prepared

by consulting different resources and by interviewing some physicians

• Determining class hierarchy, properties,... and creation of ontology in OWL-DL using Protege 3.1

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 20

Part o

f pro

posed

Im

ap

irmen

t-UI

on

tolo

gy

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 21

Consequences of impairments-user interface ontology

– Helpful in automatically adapting the UI for a specific user

– Helpful in deducing the best match of UI characteristics for a user with multiple impairments

– Historical data would be beneficial for studying the cause-effect relationship between the impairments and the computer interfaces

– Could be useful for rehabilitation purposes

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 22

Conclusions

• Presenting information to different users with varying impairments is a difficult task

• Our approach paves the way for a generic solution using semantic web technology

• The effort could be equally useful for diversity

• A sample proof of concept presented

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 23

Acknowledgements

• Higher Education Commission of Pakistan• ASEAN-EU University Network Initiative• Zubair Kareem, M.D. Phy-Neurologist

Holyoke MA

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 24

• Thanks a lot!