AI-generated audio descriptions (ADs) offer scalable solutions for making visual media accessible to blind and low-vision (BLV) audiences. Nevertheless, little is known about how BLV users experience and evaluate these descriptions across emerging platforms. In this qualitative study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with ten (N=10) BLV participants, recruited based on divergences in prior survey ratings, to explore their perceptions of both human- and AI-generated ADs in contexts ranging from traditional film to short-form video and livestreams. Thematic analysis revealed five key themes: (1) information prioritization and genre-sensitive details, (2) the "better-than-nothing" consensus tempered by emotional and contextual gaps in AI-generated ADs, (3) the social dynamics of shared viewing, (4) accessibility deserts on new media platforms, and (5) the artistry-precision dilemma. Our findings highlight the need for adaptive, transparent, and user-informed AD systems that balance narrative resonance with efficiency. We conclude with design recommendations for co-designing AI-assisted accessibility tools in partnership with BLV communities.

Figure 1: Example of the VR game with the time remaining to evacuate.

We present Coastal Resilience, a gamified XR application for learning about coastal ecosystems and sustainability practices. The game is set in two coastal cities: Santa Cruz, California, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, to allow players to understand the climate impacts on coastal landscapes of an open sea versus a bay. We plan to evaluate the educational outcomes of this app with elementary school students using a VR headset and a motion-capture LED screen.

Robots are being taught by increasingly broader populations of people who provide training data for machine learning algorithms. Many studies over the past decade have begun demonstrating reproducible robot teaching methodologies and have highlighted benefits in human-robot interaction (HRI). However, there have been few investigations about what it is like for the people teaching these robots. In this study, we consider how teaching a skill to a robot arm, performing a reaching task (as opposed to observing the robot self-learning), influences a user's emotional experience and perceptions of the robot. In a$\boldsymbol{2\mathrm{x}2}$experiment$\boldsymbol{(N=160)}$, we varied the agent's learning technique (user reinforcement feedback or robot self-learning) and expressiveness (static agent face or performance-based valence expression with head following), using an online WebGL virtual environment to enable remote HRI. Our results demonstrate that users experience significantly more trust, believability, and emotional response when teaching the robot than when observing it learning, which can be amplified with agent expressiveness.

Many recent breakthroughs in medical diagnostics and drug discovery arise from deploying machine learning algorithms to large-scale data sets. However, a significant obstacle to such approaches is that they depend on high-quality annotations generated by domain experts. This study develops and evaluates BioLumin, a novel immersive mixed reality environment that enables users to virtually shrink down to the microscopic level for navigation and annotation of 3D reconstructed images. We discuss how domain experts were consulted in the specification of a pipeline to enable automatic reconstruction of biological models for mixed reality environments, driving the design of a 3DUI system to explore whether such a system allows accurate annotation of complex medical data by non-experts. To examine the usability and feasibility of BioLumin, we evaluated our prototype through a multi-stage mixed-method approach. First, three domain experts offered expert reviews, and subsequently, nineteen non-expert users performed representative annotation tasks in a controlled setting. The results indicated that the mixed reality system was learnable and that non-experts could generate high-quality 3D annotations after a short training session. Lastly, we discuss design considerations for future tools like BioLumin in medical and more general scientific contexts.

Immersive virtual reality (iVR) head-mounted display (HMD) systems paired with serious exercise games can positively augment physical rehabilitation process from both engagement and analytics perspectives. This article presents a serious game for iVR HMD-based long-term upper-extremity exercise. We demonstrate the capabilities of our game through a case study with five users recovering from upper-extremity injuries. We examine how our program maintains engagement and motivation over eight weeks, where users completed biweekly prescribed movements framed as protecting a virtual butterfly. We assess user experiences through a mixture of biomarkers from brainwave, heart rate, and galvanic skin response recorded at runtime, as well as motion capture and behavioral game data. Our results suggest that the iVR game was an effective medium in inducing high compliance, physical performance, and biometric changes even with increasing difficulty beyond the novelty effect period. We conclude with considerations of future work for iVR physical therapy games that adapt to biometric response.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, essential services and support for individuals with ASD have had to transition to telehealth and virtual technologies. While these technologies have been recommended for use to continue provision of essential services to this population, it has yet to be understood what impact it has had on essential service providers and adults with ASD. This experience report provides insight from essential service providers and adults with ASD from a community center for adults with developmental disabilities to understand their experiences in providing and accessing mental health, and community and vocational support during the COVID-19 pandemic through telehealth and virtual technologies.

There is an open call for technology to be more playful [5, 79] and for tech design to be more inclusive of people with disabilities [80]. In the era of COVID19, it is often unsafe for the public in general and people with disabilities, in particular, to engage in in-person design exercises using traditional methods. This presents a missed opportunity as these populations are already sharing playful content rich with tacit design knowledge that can be used to inspire the design of playful everyday technology. We present our process of scraping play potentials [4] from TikTok from content creators with disabilities to generate design concepts that may inspire future technology design. We share 7 emerging themes from the scraped content, a catalog of design concepts that may inspire designers, and discuss the relevance of the emerging themes and possible implications for the design concepts.

Inactivity and a lack of engagement with exercise is a pressing health problem in the United States and beyond. Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) is a promising medium to motivate users through engaging virtual environments. Currently, modern iVR lacks a comparative analysis between research and consumer-grade systems for exercise and health. This article examines two such iVR mediums: the Cave Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) and the head-mounted display (HMD). Specifically, we compare the room-scale Mechdyne CAVE and HTC Vive Pro HMD with a custom in-house exercise game that was designed such that user experiences were as consistent as possible between both systems. To ensure that our findings are generalizable for users of varying abilities, we recruited 40 participants with and without cognitive disabilities with regard to the fact that iVR environments and games can differ in their cognitive challenge between users. Our results show that across all abilities, the HMD excelled in in-game performance, biofeedback response, and player engagement. We conclude with considerations in utilizing iVR systems for exergaming with users across cognitive abilities.

Amblyopia, or "lazy eye" is the world's most common neurological eye disorder. Yet, very little has been done looking into how to make virtual reality (VR) more usable for people with Amblyopia. Furthermore, a trend of using VR for Amblyopia therapy has arisen, making such a study more essential than ever. Our study asks our user base of people with Amblyopia questions through two surveys, verbal feedback, and interviews about their experience with our VR video game Amblyopia therapy. We found patterns encoded in this information, which we use to create preliminary hypotheses for making VR experiences as usable as possible for people with Amblyopia.

Immersive Virtual Reality paired with soft robotics may be synergized to create personalized assistive therapy experiences. Virtual worlds hold power to stimulate the user with newly instigated low-cost, high-performance commercial Virtual Reality (VR) devices to enable engaging and accurate physical therapy. Soft robotic wearables are a versatile tool in such stimulation. This preliminary study investigates a novel rehabilitative VR experience, Project Butterfly (PBF), that synergizes VR Mirror Visual Feedback Therapy with soft robotic exoskeletal support. Nine users of ranging ability explore an immersive gamified physio-therapy experience by following and protecting a virtual butterfly, completed with an actuated robotic wearable that motivates and assists the user to perform rehabilitative physical movement. Specifically, the goals of this study are to evaluate the feasibility, ease-of-use, and comfort of the proposed system. The study concludes with a set of design considerations for future immersive physio-rehab robotic-assisted games.

This paper discusses a virtual reality (VR) therapeutic video game for treatment of the neurological eye disorder, Amblyopia. Amblyopia is often referred to as lazy eye, and it entails weaker vision in one eye due to a poor connection between the eye and the brain. Until recently it was thought to be untreatable in adults, but new research has proven that with consistent therapy even adults can improve their Amblyopia, especially through perceptual learning and video games. Even so, therapy compliance remains low due to the fact that conventional therapies are perceived as either invasive, dull and/or boring. Our game aims to make Amblyopia therapy more immersive, enjoyable and playful. The game was perceived by our users to be a fun and accessible alternative, as it involves adhering a Bangerter foil (an opaque sticker) on a VR headset to blur vision in an Amblyopic person's dominant eye while having them playa VR video game. To perform well in the video game, their brain must adapt to rely on seeing with their weaker eye, thereby reforging that neurological connection. While testing our game, we also studied users behavior to investigate what visual and kinetic components were more effective therapeutically. Our findings generally show positive results, showing that visual acuity in adults increases with 45 minutes of therapy. Amblyopia has many negative symptoms including poor depth perception (nec-essary for daily activities such as driving), so this therapy could be life changing for adults with Amblyopia.

SpokeIt is a mobile serious game for health designed to support speech articulation therapy. Here, we present SpokeIt as well as 2 preceding speech therapy prototypes we built, all of which use a novel offline critical speech recognition system capable of providing feedback in real-time. We detail key design motivations behind each of them and report on their potential to help adults with speech impairment co-occurring with developmental disabilities. We conducted a qualitative within-subject comparative study on 5 adults within this target group, who played all 3 prototypes. This study yielded refined functional requirements based on user feedback, relevant reward systems to implement based on user interest, and insights on the preferred hybrid game structure, which can be useful to others designing mobile games for speech articulation therapy for a similar target group.

Traditional forms of physical therapy and rehabilitation are often based on therapist observation and judgment, coincidentally this process oftentimes can be inaccurate, expensive, and non-timely. Modern immersive Virtual Reality systems provide a unique opportunity to make the therapy process smarter. In this paper, we present an immersive virtual reality stroke rehabilitation game based on a widely accepted therapy method, Constraint-Induced Therapy, that was evaluated by nine post-stroke participants. We implement our game as a dynamically adapting system that can account for the user's motor abilities while recording real-time motion capture and behavioral data. The game also can be used for tele-rehabilitation, effectively allowing therapists to connect with the participant remotely while also having access to +90Hz real-time biofeedback data. Our quantitative and qualitative results suggest that our system is useful in increasing affordability, accuracy, and accessibility of post-stroke motor treatment.

Children with speech impairments often find speech curriculums tedious, limiting how often children are motivated to practice. A speech therapy game has the potential to make practice fun, may help facilitate increased time and quality of at-home speech therapy, and lead to improved speech. We explore using conversational real-time speech recognition, game methodologies theorized to improve immersion and flow, and user centered approaches to design an immersive interactive speech therapy solution. Our preliminary user evaluation showed that compared to traditional methods, children were more motivated to practice speech using our system.

This paper describes a long term user study in which 13 blind participants were asked to use a blind friendly iPhone app, VizSnap -- an app designed to assist blind people in organizing and browsing a photo library without sight -- for a total of two months. VizSnap records audio while the user is aiming the camera, and allows an optional voice memo to be recorded, to allow the user to give custom information to accompany the photo, as well as capturing time, date, and location the photo was taken. All this information is available to the user when browsing through VizSnap's photo library. The participants met with us every two weeks, in which we discuss general VizSnap usage, conduct a short user study with their photos, as well as upload all data that was gathered using VizSnap. The user study aims to determine whether accompanying audio, time, date, and location metadata assists in memory retrieval of photos by blind people. We found that in general, both ambient audio and voice memo are considered most helpful for memory retrieval.

We present the development and evaluation of an online learning system for people with developmental disabilities (DD) of all ages in collaboration with Imagine! and Hope Services, two not-for-profit organizations that provide care services to people with DD. The system was implemented as an HTML5-based web application for iPad. It includes activities that aim to support and improve the process through which people with DD of all ages reinforce basic skills such as recognizing numbers, letters, money, shapes, and colors. User evaluations suggest that a system such as ours will be: 1) helpful in supporting people with DD reinforce basic skills, and 2) well-received by users.

Individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) struggle with conditions such as dysarthria, dysphagia, and dyspraxia as they speak. While speech therapy is successful in practice, outside practice requires increased commitment and effort from caregivers. Researchers developed a speech recognition game designed to encourage out-of-office exercises and motivate users to practice. Next they recruited a participant with cerebral palsy to investigate the performance of the system in a live environment. The participant joined the game after demonstration from the caregiver and temporarily increased speech loudness and clarity during play. The participant found sound effects more rewarding than animations. The total number of sentences spoken during the session was found to be less than half that of a speaker without any impairment. Researchers also observed two instances of cheating. This work provides insight into the automated motivation of motivating speech production with individuals with cerebral palsy.

We report an online learning system for adults with developmental disabilities (DD) developed in collaboration with Imagine!, a Colorado based organization that provides support services to people with developmental and cognitive disabilities. Our HTML5 online application includes lessons to teach adults with DD of all ages about numbers, letters and currency. We implemented the application on an iPad to take advantage of the simplicity of touch-based interactions. Our preliminary user evaluation suggests that the system is well-received by its intended users, and unlike competitor systems that teach basic skills, is not considered childish and boring.

We report a system for gamifying physical therapy for stroke survivors that provides a fully immersive 3D environment. The system consists of a Kinect, an Oculus Rift immersive goggle and a pair of haptic gloves. The Kinect is used to provide bodily gesture for the game as well as to record data to allow assessment of therapy progress regarding body postures. The haptic gloves operate as a controller for the player's in-game hands as well as to record data that provides therapy progress regarding finger flexibility.

Studies showed that people with limited or no vision are taking, storing, organizing, and sharing photos, but there isn't much information of how they do these. While the process for taking photos is somewhat understood, there has been little work researching how exactly blind people are storing, organizing, and sharing their photos without sighted help. We ran interviews with 11 people with limited to no vision who have taken digital photos, and analyzed their responses. We aim to use this information to motivate features of a smartphone application that will assist people with limited vision not only with aiming the camera to capture a "good" photo, but also with locating and organizing their photos so they may retrieve their photos at a later date or share them with others, online or offline.

In an initial user study, three motor-impaired musicians---a composer with a degenerative motor neuron disease, a guitarist who suffered a stroke, and a first-year college student with impaired finger movement---identified prospective areas of research in assistive technology. Participants in the study made use of a range of technologies to adapt conventional software to their needs, and identified practical limitations and challenges in those adaptations, including suggestions for novel and intuitive interfaces, optimized control-surface layouts, and repurposing opportunities in text-input techniques.

Brain-training software and websites are becoming more prevalent nowadays because of their wide availability and the key idea that they enable people to independently improve their memory and problem solving skills. Such systems offer a simple alternative to expensive specialized stroke rehabilitation software. Our research seeks to investigate the feasibility of using web-based brain-training software to help stroke survivors and, in general, individuals with cognitive impairments. We observed and interviewed stroke survivors to get a better understanding of the technologies that they feel are helpful, as well as examine the effectiveness and limitations of such technologies. We compiled an informal set of guidelines that such systems should follow in order to be effective and usable rehabilitation software aimed to help stroke survivors or individuals with cognitive impairments. To validate the guidelines and see if new ones emerged, we developed a low-fidelity prototype of a web-based brain-training software and tested it with five participants to check its feasibility as a cognitive rehabilitation software solution. The result was an improved set of guidelines for software that aims to improve the cognitive skills of stroke survivors and, in general, individuals with cognitive impairments.

While a photograph is a visual artifact, studies reveal that a number of people with visual impairments are also interested in being able to share their memories and experiences with their sighted counterparts in the form of a photograph. We conducted an online survey to better understand the challenges faced by people with visual impairments in sharing and organizing photos, and reviewed existing tools and their limitations. Based on our analysis, we developed an accessible mobile application that enables a visually impaired user to capture photos along with audio recordings for the ambient sound and memo description and to browse through them eyes-free. Five visually impaired participants took part in a study in which they used our app to take photographs in naturalistic settings and to share them later with a sighted viewer. The participants were able to use our app to identify each photograph on their own during the photo sharing session, and reported high satisfaction in having been able to take the initiative during the process.

Natural language understanding (NLU) systems are promising alternatives to traditional menu-based dialogue systems more commonly employed in games, yet they remain widely under-explored and under-studied. In this paper, we present the results from a qualitative study we conducted on different versions of an NLU interface, inspired by previous results showing this interface to maximize player presence and engagement. Specifically we introduced different pacing options to an NLU interface by using prompts and pauses, and studied how these different interface approaches changed player behavior and perception. Our results provide important guidelines on how to design NLU systems for games, but their implications go beyond that: We have found further evidence that careful mediation through interface design, by introducing understandable and player-supporting conventions to interactive experiences, can help designers create user experiences in accordance with their end-goals. Furthermore, our results provide insights into the concept of agency, particularly towards a more complete model that emphasizes the importance of audience expectation and understanding in creating a sense of agency.

In this paper we discuss design guidelines for game-based applications that motivate teenagers to do physical activity. We describe an application developed based on these guidelines and results from a user study we ran using this application. Finally, we discuss additional design guidelines that emerged from the user study. These guidelines include providing voiceover for text in the application, providing bonuses or rewards for accomplishing physical activity goals, and providing the functionality that let teenagers tailor the application to their physical activity needs. Future work will consist of improving the application based on the user study results and running a long-term study with the improved application.

This paper introduces a text entry application for users with physical disabilities who cannot utilize a manual keyboard. The system allows the user to enter text hands-free, with the help of "Non-verbal Vocal Input" (e.g., humming or whistling). To keep the number of input sounds small, an ambiguous keyboard is used. As the user makes a sequence of sounds, each representing a subset of the alphabet, the program searches for matches in a dictionary. As a model for the system, the scanning-based application QANTI was redesigned and adapted to accept the alternative input signals. The usability of the software was investigated in an international longitudinal study done at locations in the Czech Republic, Germany, and the United States. Eight test users were recruited from the target community. The users differed in the level of speech impairment. Three users did not complete the study due to the severity of their impairment. By the end of the experiment, the users were able to enter text at rates between 10 and 15 characters per minute.

One compelling aspect of computer RPGs is the promise of player agency: the ability to make significant and desired choices in a large, complex, and story-rich environment. Giving players meaningful choice has traditionally required the creation of tremendous amounts of hand-authored story content. This authoring paradigm tends to introduce both structural and workload problems for RPG designers. Our hypothesis is that reducing authorial burden and increasing agency are two sides of the same coin, both requiring advancement in three distinct areas: (1) dynamic story management architecture that allows story elements to be selected and re-ordered in response to player choices; (2) dynamic dialogue generation which takes history and relationships into account; and (3) an authoring interface that lets writers focus on quests and characters. This paper describes SpyFeet, a playable prototype of a storytelling system designed to test this hypothesis.

This paper reports a mobile persuasive application to motivate teenagers to start and continue being physically active. Being physically active can lead to reduced risks of having weight and cardiovascular problems; however efforts in this direction had variable success. Designing technology that will be engaging and motivating for teenagers requires an understanding of the factors that contribute to behavior adoption in teenagers. To understand these, we approach the design from several theoretical models: Theory of Planned Behavior, Theory of Meaning Behavior, and Personality Theory. We found that 1) Personality traits affect perceptions on physical activities and the usefulness of devices that motivate them; 2) Favored motivational phrases are universal across traits; 3) Those who tried our prototype was generally positive and stated that they would use it on their own; 5) The characteristics of games that are desired are: social or competitive, outdoor, simple to learn and with large variations.

This paper reports on a General Education course called Universal Access: Disability, Technology and Society that enables students from all majors to learn more about disability and the issues that surround it, as well as how Assistive Technology facilitates effective participation of those with disabilities in society. Guest lectures, meant to give the students different perspectives on disability, are integral part of the course. Guest lecturers include experts in disability studies, professionals working with people with disabilities, and persons with disability. To gain practical knowledge, the students carry out group projects or volunteering activities that involves people with disabilities. Since its first introduction in 2006, the course had always filled to capacity. A survey with 75 students conducted in Winter 2010 revealed that students felt that their knowledge about universal access and disabilities had improved significantly, and that they had become aware of accessibility in everyday life.

We present a study focusing on the usability of a wayfinding and localization system for persons with visual impairment. This system uses special color markers, placed at key locations in the environment, that can be detected by a regular camera phone. Three blind participants tested the system in various indoor locations and under different system settings. Quantitative performance results are reported.

Dialogue systems are central to role-playing games, adventure games, interactive fictions, and some forms of interactive drama and cinema---but we have little empirical evidence about how, or even whether, the design of dialogue system interfaces shapes gameplay experience. In this paper we present the results of a study directly comparing three different dialogue system interfaces implemented over the complete course of a dramatic, story-focused game. We find that, holding the rest of the game steady, changing the dialogue interface produces significant changes in gameplay experience. Further, these changes shape perceptions of the system well beyond the interface and its operation. The changes are also sometimes resonant with, and sometimes at odds with, conventional wisdom about these interface options in the game design and writing communities. Our study compared three interfaces: a sentence selection interface (which appears to maximize story involvement), an abstract response menu interface (which maximized reasoning about the underlying game structures), and a natural language understanding interface (which maximized a sense of presence and engagement with the overall experience). Our full results provide valuable future guidance for those seeking a dialogue interface that is resonant with their gameplay experience goals.

This paper reports Rock Vibe, a modification performed on Rock Band® computer game to represent visual information using haptic and audio feedback to allow people with no or limited vision to enjoy the game. We modified the drumming activity of Rock Band® by providing users with vibrations on upper and lower arms to represent the drumhead cues and on ankle to represent the kick drum cue. Auditory information is used to provide feedback on correct and timely hit (with various drumming sounds) or errors (with a click sound). Computer's standard speech synthesizer is used to read the menu, song title, instruction and score. A series of evaluations with people with various levels of visual impairment were performed at different stages of the system development. We found that users were able to master the system almost immediately, with some users making no error halfway through the first song.

This paper reports a low-cost autonomous wearable accelerometry-based posture monitoring system for stroke survivors. The hardware part of the system consists of monitoring devices, each of which comprises of a three-axial accelerometer and a beeper, LED light and vibrator to provide redundant modes of inappropriate posture warnings that would hopefully trigger self-correction. The inappropriate posture data are stored in an EEPROM. The software part of the system downloads, analyzes and presents the data in graphical format to enable a carer or therapist to quickly glance at the durations, frequency and locations of inappropriate postures.

This work presents preliminary results of a case study of intergenerational communication through video blogging, following a 79-year old blogger and the responses from his younger readers. An open, non-patronizing and direct form of intergenerational communication was observed, which fits into the stereotype activation model of communication framework. We report on the motivations and nature of interaction between blogger and readers and highlight some of the implications for the choice of supportive media for intergenerational communication.

This study is a case study of understanding the deeper-seated issues that make digital television (DTV) services unappealing for older women through a technique called Delphi interview with a panel of three expert DTV older women users. The panel suggested that cost, content appropriateness, operation complexity and available assistance were the main drivers of adoption or rejection of DTV services. The panel also stated that television was not the main source of entertainment and rather had the role of providing news, filling up time and exercising minds.

This paper presents quantitative data on browsing activities with 63 respondents aged 55 years old and over from three countries: UK, USA and Thailand. The questionnaire explored frequently browsed topics, browser's functions used, problems with standard browsers and features to add to a standard browser to make it more ageing-friendly. The study revealed country-related differences in various aspects of Internet uses, including the topics accessed and places of access. However, no country-related difference was observed on the input device used and the number of browsing windows opened.

This paper reports a comparison of user performance (time and accuracy) when controlling a popular arcade game of Tetris using speech recognition or non-speech (humming) input techniques. The preliminary qualitative study with seven participants shows that users were able to control the game using both methods but required more training and feedback for the humming control. The revised interface, which implemented these requirements, was positively responded by users. The quantitative test with 12 other participants shows that humming excelled in both time and accuracy, especially over longer distances and advanced difficulty levels.

This paper looks at different ways of personalising web page presentation to alleviate functional impairments in older people. The paper considers how impairments may be addressed by web design and through various personalisation instruments: accessibility features of standard browsers, proxy servers, assistive technology, application adaptors, and special purpose browsers. A pilot study of five older web users indicated that the most favoured personalisation technique was overriding the CSS (cascading style sheet) with a readily available one using a standard browser. The least favoured one was using assistive technology. In a follow-up study with 16 older web users, performing goal-directed browsing tasks, overriding CSS remains the most favoured. Assistive technology remains the least favoured and the slowest. Based on user comments, one-take-home message for web personalisation instrument developer is that the best instrument for older persons is one that most faithfully preserves the original layout while requiring the least effort.

This paper presents the development of a set of research-derived ageing-centred Web design guidelines. An initial set of guidelines was first developed through an extensive review of the HCI and ageing literature and through employing a series of classification methods (card sorting and affinity diagrams) were employed as a means for obtaining a revised and more robust set of guidelines. A group of older Web users were then involved in evaluating the usefulness of the guidelines. To provide evaluation context for these users, two websites targeted to older people were used. This study makes several contributions to the field. First, it is perhaps the first manuscript that proposes ageing-friendly guidelines that are for most part backed by published studies. Second, the guidelines proposed in this study have been thoroughly examined through a series of expert and user verifications, which should give users of these guidelines confidence of their validity.

The paper reports on two development cycles of a joystick-operated full-screen magnifier for visually impaired users. In the first cycle of evaluation, seven visually impaired computer users evaluated the system in comprehension-based sessions using text documents. After considering feedback from these evaluators, a second version of the system was produced and evaluated by a further six visually impaired users. The second evaluation was conducted using information-seeking tasks using Web pages. In both evaluations, the 'thinking aloud protocol' was used. This study makes several contributions to the field. First, it is perhaps the first published study investigating the use of a joystick as an absolute and relative pointing device to control a screen magnifier. Second, the present study revealed that for most of the visually impaired users who participated in the study the joystick had good spatial, cognitive and ergonomic attributes, even for those who had never before used a joystick.

This article describes one of the first documented participatory design (PD) efforts specifically aimed at older users. The goal of the project was to make an existing World Wide Web (WWW) site more user-friendly for older users, specifically in terms of display format issues. A PD team was assembled from a group of community-dwelling older adults and developers from a university research lab. After the developers established the trust and confidence of the participants and developed a conceptual user model (based on a survey and previous literature), the PD team evaluated the original design. Prototypes were iteratively developed and tested by the PD team to improve problems found in the original design. Specific design improvements and general design guidelines for older WWW users are discussed.