Alireza Darvishy

Zurich University of Applied Sciences | ZHAW · Institute of Applied Information Technology (InIT)

Worauf müssen Sie als Auftrageber*in achten, wenn Sie eine altersgerechte Webseite oder eine mobile Applikation entwickeln lassen? Dieses Buch erklärt Ihnen, wie altersbedingte Einschränkungen sich auf die Nutzung von Webseiten und mobilen Applikationen auswirken. Wenn gerontologische Aspekte im Design von digitalen Kanälen nicht berücksichtigt sin...

This paper describes the ongoing development of a conversational interaction concept that allows visually impaired users to easily create and edit text documents on mobile devices using mainly voice input. In order to verify the concept, a prototype app was developed and tested for both iOS and Android systems, based on the natural-language underst...

In recent decades, several assistive technologies for visually impaired and blind (VIB) people have been developed to improve their ability to navigate independently and safely. At the same time, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) techniques have become sufficiently robust and efficient to be adopted in the development of assistive techno...

Everyday life is becoming increasingly digital. The generation of over 65 s need to be included in this trend, not sidelined. To achieve this, it is essential that all digital channels be made age-appropriate.

The significance and use of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) have increased dramatically in recent years. Information and communication offerings are more and more focused on the internet. Comparative figures for Switzerland since 1997 show that there was a strong increase—of over 90%—in internet use among 50 to 59-year-olds...

In today’s world, electronic devices play an important part in almost every area of our day-to-day lives, be it the alarm clock waking us in the morning, our mobile phone connecting us to family and friends, or the computer we use to surf the internet. The youth of today live in a digitalised world with computers and smartphones. However, it is a d...

With the Augmented Reality (AR) technology avail-able today, it is quite feasible to accommodate the needs of the visually impaired (VI) via AR. In this paper, a framework is introduced to help the VI navigate and explore unfamiliar indoor environments. In contrast to commonly used AR applications focused on visual augmentation, the proposed framew...

This paper presents a vision for personalized accessible routing for people with mobility impairments and discusses which accessibility information is needed to realize this vision, such as curb cuts, inclination, path width, and additional information about various barriers. In a case study for the city of zurich, the paper first analyses how much...

This short paper presents and summarizes six Special Thematic Session (STS) papers discussing accessibility and usability aspects related to the Internet of Things for elderly and disabled people. The papers include case studies, the development of new prototypes, devices and services, as well as end user-interviews and end-user questionnaires on u...

Open Educational Resources (OERs) have been widely promoted in the higher education community in recent years. However, the accessibility of OERs for people with disabilities has received relatively little attention. This paper presents the results of interviews carried out with people at higher education institutions worldwide who are involved in...

This paper presents the results of a study to verify whether the Google UI framework Flutter can create accessible apps for iOS and Android platforms simultaneously. Flutter provides mechanisms such as semantic classes to optimise accessibility during app development. Optimising accessibility for mobile apps and especially for screen readers is a m...

One unsolved sub-task of document analysis is mathematical formula detection (MFD). Research by ourselves and others has shown that existing MFD datasets with inline and display formula labels are small and have insufficient labeling quality. There is therefore an urgent need for datasets with better quality labeling for future research in the MFD...

Um bei der schnell zunehmenden Digitalisierung des Alltags die Generation 64plus nicht zu verlieren, sondern miteinzubeziehen, ist es wichtig, alle digitalen Kanäle altersgerecht zu gestalten.

Elektronische Geräte gehören heute zum Alltag des Menschen in fast allen Lebensbereichen, sei es der Wecker, der uns morgens weckt, sei es das Mobiltelefon, das uns mit einem nahestehenden Menschen verbindet, oder sei es der Computer, mit dem wir ins Internet gehen. In diesem Kapitel werden zehn Bereiche für eine altersgerechte Gestaltung von mobil...

Bedeutung und Nutzung moderner Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien haben in den letzten Jahren stark zugenommen. In diesem Kapitel werden neun Bereiche für eine seniorengerechte Webseitengestaltung genauer dargestellt. Jedem Bereich werden auch Empfehlungen zur Umsetzung zugeordnet.

Dieser Konferenzbeitrag fasst die Ziele, das Service Design sowie die Resultate des Projekts „Barrierefreier Tourismusraum Bodensee“, das von der ZHAW in Zusammenarbeit mit verschiedenen Hochschulpartnern, Industriepartnern und ausgewählten Hotels rund um den Bodensee durchgeführt wurde, zusammen. Das Projekt wurde im Rahmen des IBH AAL Living Lab...

Dieser Beitrag berichtet über eine sprachbasierte assistierende Technologie, welche für Hotelgäste mit Beeinträchtigungen im Rahmen von "barrierefreier Tourismusraum Bodensee" (Hutte et al, 2020) entwickelt wurde. Ebenso werden die Resultate der Interviews mit den genannten Gästen nach deren Aufenthalt präsentiert. Die entwickelte assistierende Tec...

This publication offers a set of guidelines for parties involved in the digitization of heritage documents, including librarians, archivists, museums workers, curators, and other stakeholders in carefully planning digital platforms and contents with a view to incorporating disability and accessibility aspects.

This paper describes an interaction concept for persons with visual impairments to explore digital maps. Mobile map applications like Google Maps have become an important instrument for navigation and exploration. However, existing map applications are highly visually oriented, making them inaccessible to users with visual impairments. This ongoing...

This paper presents the goals, service design approach, and the results of the project “Accessible Tourism around Lake Constance”, which is currently run by different universities, industrial partners and selected hotels in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In the 1st phase, interviews with different persons with disabilities and elderly persons ha...

This paper presents the goals, service design approach, and the results of the project “Accessible Tourism around Lake Constance”, which is currently run by different universities, industrial partners and selected hotels in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In the 1st phase, interviews with different persons with disabilities and elderly persons ha...

https://ethz.ch/de/die-eth-zuerich/lehre/innovation/tag-hindernisfreie-lehre.html Ein öffentlicher Vortrag zur «Sensibilisierung» zur Barrierefreiheit an der Hochschule. Hier wird allgemeinverständlich (also auch für nicht- technik-affine Menschen) aufgezeigt, welche Problematiken es gibt, was zu beachten ist, und dass es Lösungen gibt.

Trillions of documents online are in PDF format, but only a small amount of these PDF documents include the necessary markup to make them accessible for people with disabilities. This paper presents the results of three related data collection efforts: a survey (with 61 participants), interviews (with 6 participants), and usability testing (with 6...

This paper describes the preliminary results an ongoing project in the area of accessible tourism, which is currently being run by different universities, industrial partners and selected hotels. The first goal of the project is to systematically identify the barriers that travelers with disabilities encounter today when going on holidays. Another...

Mobile map applications have become a ubiquitous and important tool for navigation and exploration. However, existing map applications are heavily based on visual information, and are targeted towards persons with normal vision. Users with visual impairments face significant barriers when using these apps – currently, no major map app offers an acc...

In 2019, the 5th edition of the AAL practice forum SMARTER LIVES was realized. The event addresses the challenges of demographic change within the health- and social care sector, as well as inside of the society. SMARTER LIVES discusses and presents opportunities innovative, technological solutions in context of an ageing society. The proceedings a...

The aim of this work is to help visually impaired and blind people to benefit equally from digitization in public transport. It consolidates the requirements that visually impaired and blind people place on an assistance system to facilitate their daily use of public transport. These requirements should make it easier for those affected and their a...

Accessible Tourism

This report focuses on digital inclusion as it relates to four of the 17 Goals for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda:SDG 9 - Innovation, Industry, and Infrastructure,SDG 16 - Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions,SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals,SDG 4 - Quality Education.For each of the goals, a number of major challenges and key recomme...

This paper gives a brief overview of currently existing assistive technologies for different kinds of disabilities. An elaborate discussion of all types of assistive technologies is beyond the scope of this paper. Assistive technologies have evolved dramatically in recent years and will continue to be further developed thanks to major progress in a...

This paper presents a comparison of different post-processing software tools to make PDF documents accessible. The comparison is based on different qualitative and verifiable criteria. In addition, this paper gives an overview of different standards of PDF accessibility for people with visual impairments using screen-reader software. PDF formats, p...

Assistive technologies, people with disabilities, accessibility

Inclusion of people with disabilities, accessibility, assistive technologies

Special education, inclusion of people with disabilities, participation, assistive technologies

This presentation provides an overview of the state of the art in the area of assistive technologies and digital accessibility. Recent technological advancements have enabled people with disabilities (PWDs) to gain advantages in education, daily life, and professional settings. Different examples from the educational setting will be provided. Futur...

This paper presents recommendations for avoiding or eliminating unnecessary barriers to mobile application usage by older generations. It sets out ten areas of age-appropriate application design. The aim of this paper is to help ensure that the design of mobile applications, including assistive applications, is accessible for elderly persons.

This brochure is aimed at people who commission, design, or develop mobile applications. Ten areas of age-appropriate mobile app design are defined and steps for their implementation described. The brochure should help to ensure that more and more mobile applications become barrierfree for older people.

This paper presents recommendations for avoiding or eliminating unnecessary barriers to mobile application usage by older generations. The aim of this paper is to help ensure that the design of mobile applications is accessible for elderly persons. The recommendations are written in such a way as to be easily understandable for both app developers...

Dieser Vortrag gibt zuerst einen historischen Überblick über den Einsatz von Technologien für Menschen mit Behinderungen. Dann werden Beispiele von momentan erhältlichen assistierenden Technologien für verschiedene Behinderungsarten und Bereiche vorgestellt. Assistierende Technologien umfassen alle jene technischen ‚Hilfsmittel’, die zu einer Aufre...

Concrete examples on how digital empowerment resulting from successful measures taken at the international and national levels improved the quality of life of persons with disabilities, provided access to information and knowledge, facilitated learning and teaching, cultural expression and employment, as well as built an enabling environment and op...

This presentation gives an overview about carried out accessibility projects in the last ten years at Credit Suisse, led by Alireza Darvishy.

This paper presents recommendations for avoiding or eliminating unnecessary barriers to mobile application usage by older generations. It sets out ten areas of age-appropriate application design. The aim of this paper is to help ensure that the design of mobile applications, including assistive applications, is accessible for elderly persons.

Die Broschüre richtet sich an alle, die mobile Applikationen in Auftrag geben, konzipieren und um- setzen. Es werden zehn Bereiche zur seniorengerechten mobilen App-Gestaltung benannt und Umsetzungsschritte beschrieben. Die Broschüre soll dazu beitragen, dass immer mehr mobile Applikationen für ältere Personen barrierefrei werden.

This paper describes a new algorithm for the automatic detection and tagging of paragraphs in PDF documents. This is an important feature of the PDF Accessibility Validation Engine (PAVE) [1] which is an open-source web application for the analysis and semi-automatic correction of accessibility issues in PDF documents. The tool is currently used by...

This short paper presents five papers discussing accessibility, usability and other end-user issues related to mobile apps for disabled people. The papers include experimental investigations, end user-interviews and end-user questionnaires on particular technologies, including new prototypes, and the development of guidelines. End-user groups inclu...

Webseiten sollten «altersgerecht und für alle nutz- bar sein». Dieser Forderung wurde in einem interdisziplinären Forschungsprojekt nachgegangen. Entstanden ist eine hilfreiche Broschüre für die Praxis.

Récapitulation. Les sites Web doivent « être adaptés à l’âge et utilisables par tous ». Cette exigence a été explorée dans un projet de recherche interdisciplinaire qui a débouché sur une brochure utile pour la pratique.

Eine Forschungskooperation der ZHAW und der HES-SO unter der Leitung des Intituts für Vielfalt und gesellschaftliche Teilhabe der ZHAW, Departement Soziale Arbeit.

Il n’existait jusqu’ici aucune étude représentative de la situation professionnelle des personnes handicapées de la vue sur le premier marché du travail en Suisse. C’est pourquoi SAMS, l’étude sur le handicap visuel et le marché du travail, mandatée par l’Union centrale suisse pour le bien des aveugles, s’est penchée sur deux questions: d’une part,...

Eine Studie über Sehbehinderte im Berufsleben in der Schweiz

The Seminar targeted education and rehabilitation professionals, service providers, researchers and experts in information technology and assistive technology. It included keynote speeches, selected contributions from the participants and parallel working groups. It was organised in such a way to promote the maximum amount of information exchange,...

This paper describes the implementation of the PDF Accessibility Validation Engine (PAVE). PAVE is a web based application for identifying and correcting accessibility issues in PDF documents. The accessibility analysis is based on the PDF/UA standard. We previously introduced the idea of such a system in [1]. The entire application runs on a web s...

This paper compares accessibility features of two popular platforms from a user perspective. The comparison is based on accessibility features for different kinds of disabilities such as vision, hearing or physically challenged users. A section on accessibility in mobile applications follows. According to a survey [1], the use of mobile platforms b...

This paper compares two new freely available software plugins for MS PowerPoint and Word documents that we have developed at the ZHAW with similar tools with respect to important accessibility criteria. Our plugins [1, 2, 3] allow the analysis of accessibility issues and consequently the generation of fully accessible PDF documents. The document au...

This research aims to define the most significant criteria for guidance on accessible design. It highlights 9 significant areas of guidance which we consider to be very important for the design of accessible, elderly friendly websites and web-applications. These areas look at specific elements of web design, including: structure; navigation; langua...

Das Internet ist aus dem heutigen gesellschaftlichen und privaten Leben kaum noch wegzudenken. Die Nutzung des Internets zuhause wie unterwegs ist allgegenwärtig, dennoch wird auf spezifische Wünsche und Bedürfnisse gerade älterer NutzerInnen wenig eingegangen (z.B. Webgestaltung, Benutzerfreundlichkeit). Das Internet ist auch für Menschen im höher...

This paper presents one of two new software plugins for MS PowerPoint and Word documents which allow the analysis of accessibility issues and consequently the generation of fully accessible PDF documents. The document authors using these plugins require no specific accessibility knowledge. This paper introduces the user interface of the Microsoft P...

This paper presents a software architecture for a web-based service that checks the accessibility of PDF documents and is capable of rendering them accessible. Users will be able to detect accessibility issues related to a PDF document and use a web browser to fix them. The implementation includes a user interface component as well as a PDF analysi...

This paper presents a flexible software architecture concept that allows the automatic generation of fully accessible PDF documents originating from various authoring tools such as Adobe InDesign [1] or Microsoft Word [2]. The architecture can be extended to include any authoring tools capable of creating PDF documents. For each authoring tool, a s...

This paper describes the PMA research project in progress, whose aim is to develop a concept for personalized mobile route guidance and information for air passengers with disabilities (PWDs), and to implement this concept step by step. The PMA guides PWDs along their route from home to the desired departure gate (or vice-versa: from landing to des...

This paper introduces the concept called auditory scenes, which is a tool for high semantic description of everyday sounds, and two grammar approaches based on this concept. It does not consider auditory scene analysis, which describes the ability of listeners to separate the acoustic events arriving from different environmental sources into separa...

This paper introduces the concept called auditory scenes, which is a tool for high semantic description of everyday sounds, and two grammar approaches based on this concept. It does not consider auditory scene analysis, which describes the ability of listeners to separate the acoustic events arriving from different environmental sources into separa...

This paper describes a software prototype which allows visual composition and manipulation of everyday sounds based on a suggested concept called "Auditory Scenes" [3]. The description of user interface components in the Java software prototype is the main topic of this paper. The concept of "Auditory Scenes" assumes various perceptual attributes f...

A blind or visually impaired user can get lost in hyperspace on one single W3-page. This paper presents Web Access for Blind users (WAB), a working system which makes web-surfing easier for blind persons. Normally, structure and meta information in HTML documents are displayed visually and are difficult for blind users to recognize. WAB transforms...

An abstract is not available.

This paper presents work in progress on automatic generation of "environmental sounds" based on physical modelling. The increase in complexity of the Graphical User Interfaces , the expansion of Virtual Reality and multimedia applications has led to the necessity of using sound to ease the human computer interaction. This category of sounds can be...

This paper presents a partially implemented layered software architecture for describing and designing environmental sounds (everyday sounds) in non visual interfaces based on a new sound model (audio framework). This architecture facilitates non-speech audio presentation of objects and interaction mechanisms to non visual interfaces. Physical laye...

This paper presents an object oriented layered software architecture for describing and designing environmental (everyday) sounds in user interfaces based on a new sound model (audio framework). This new architecture is defined by different layers including the physical layer, system sound software layer, sound analyser/synthesiser layer and the in...

This paper presents work in progress on automatic generation of "environmental sounds" based on physical modelling. The increase in complexity of the Graphical User Interfaces and the expansion of Virtual Reality and multimedia applications has led to the necessity of using sound to ease the human computer interaction. This category of sounds can b...

This paper presents an object oriented layered software architecture for describing and designing environmental (everyday) sounds in user interfaces based on a new sound model (audio framework). This new architecture is defined by different layers including the physical layer, system sound software layer, sound analyser/synthesiser layer and the in...

This paper describes work in progress on automatic generation of "impact sounds" based on physical modelling. These sounds can be used as non-speech audio presentation of objects and as interaction-mechanisms to non visual interfaces. In this paper especially we present the complete physical model for impact sounds "spherical objects hitting flat p...

The objective of this paper is the development of concepts, methods and a prototype for an audio frame work. This audio frame work shall describe sounds on a highly abstract semantic level. We describe every sound as the result of one or several interactions between one or several objects at a certain place and in a certain environment. The attribu...

This paper describes work in progress on automatic generation of "impact sounds" based on purely physical modelling. These sounds can be used as nonspeech audio presentation of objects and as interaction mechanisms to non visual interfaces. Different approaches for synthesizing impact sounds, the process of recording impact sounds and the analysis...

This paper describes work in progress on automatic generation of “impact sounds” based on purely physical modelling. These sounds can be used as non-speech audio presentation of objects and as interaction mechanisms to non visual interfaces. Different approaches for synthesizing impact sounds, the process of recording impact sounds and the analysis...