Making mobile devices and services more usable by and useful for people with autism and other cognitive and learning disabilities

A lot of work has been done to define how mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) and services can be designed so that they can be used by, and be helpful to, people with a range of physical and sensory disabilities. There... [ view full abstract ]

A lot of work has been done to define how mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) and services can be designed so that they can be used by, and be helpful to, people with a range of physical and sensory disabilities. There has not been the same effort to produce guidance about how to design mobile devices and services so that people with cognitive and learning disabilities will also be able to make use of and benefit from them.

In March 2015, an XXXX team has started to develop this missing guidance. This work will avoid the mistake of assuming that everyone who has been diagnosed with a disability will have the same day-to-day problems. A solution that will help one person on the autistic spectrum may not help all people with autism.

The guidelines will relate to specific individual issues such as anxiety when in unfamiliar places. One way to support this could be to try to provide information about the person’s current location that is adapted to meet that specific individual’s particular interests. Such a solution could be helpful for many people on the autistic spectrum but it could also help some people with Alzheimer’s disease. Guiding someone with Asperger syndrome towards a particular communications service could make it easier for that individual to deal with the social complexities of communication.

The presentation will explain the goals of the work, the working methods, and some insights into the proposed design guidance shortly before it is published.

The work described is carried out by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and is co-funded by the European Commission. The funding is used to pay a selected team of experts to carry out the work (to... [ view full abstract ]

The work described is carried out by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and is co-funded by the European Commission.

The funding is used to pay a selected team of experts to carry out the work (to develop guidelines, etc.). The terms of reference of the work are described in contracts made with the experts. The delivered work has to meet the terms of reference described in the contracts.

Neither ETSI nor the European Commission influence the content of the work or how it is carried out.

Note XXXX in the abstract refers to ETSI.