About Project

Incorporating Requirements of People with Special Needs or Impairments to Internet-based Systems and Services

Main objectives

• Encapsulate into a design aid environment work on design-for-all tools and methods; user modelling theories and methods including users with special needs; guidelines, recommendations and results from work about hypermedia, enrolment and accessibility, and
• Use this environment to redesign and enhance Internet services in the areas of teleworking/online learning and e-commerce, guided by rigorous user testing and evaluation.

Operational Goal

• Identify the suitability of a range of tools and methods, including metadata, for delivering media and alternating content formats relevant to multimodality in the service of accessibility;
• Elaborate models of user requirements, involving large and international groups of users with special needs, relevant to media and translate these models into technical characteristics of communication channels so that services may be configured to these characteristics;
• Specify, design and develop the information infrastructure (e.g. user models - profiles, content descriptions, alternating media capabilities, etc.) that is required to adapt delivering media and content to user preferences and characteristics, making use of relevant standards, based on state of the art directory services technologies, as part of the design aid environment;
• Specify, design and develop user centred techniques and mechanisms for adaptation of media and content to user preferences and characteristics, based on state of the art intelligent agent technologies, as part of the design aid environment;
• Further develop existing Internet services, based on the above findings and tools, in the selected areas of electronic commerce and teleworking / on-line learning, contributing to several Community Social Objectives and Policies with focus and very specific impact on the social objective for?Employment? and improved ?Quality of Life?.
• Perform user evaluation and validation of the enhanced designs and services, involving large, international groups of users with special needs, which will enable IRIS to make the best use of their varying requirements and insight;
• Offer generic recommendations for enhancements of Internet-based services, addressing the IT professionals community, based on the above findings and experience;
• Disseminate the results of this work to appropriate fora, focusing on relevant standardisation activities including areas such as design-for-all, human factors, telecommunications and usability.

Technical Approach

1. Scoping Specifications - Quality Strategy
2. Technical Design and System Implementation
3. System Validation, Demonstration and Assessment
4. Dissemination Activities and Exploitation Plan
5. Milestones on

1. This phase sets the scope of the work to be done in terms of analysing requirements of people with special needs for Internet Services and specifying the required user and system models. The successful launch and implementation of the IRIS project is based upon the sound corporate vision developed and held by each representative country and organisation within the project. This will be facilitated through the Quality Strategy that will be specified, enabling the corporate vision and supporting each constituent part to ensure the finest tools / services are consistently delivered to the highest user driven standards. This will be achieved by providing a cohesive focus for the four key phases of the project in a structured and integrated way and by making explicit the evaluation criteria by which the work will be measured as it progresses. It is stressed at this point that the IRIS quality strategy mainly addresses the technical design and implementation as well as the evaluation and demonstration stages.
2. This phase will produce the design, prototype and implementation of the basic design support components regarding the underlying metadata infrastructure, and its management for active design support. Directory services will manage the storage and retrieval of data, with regard to user and system knowledge. This includes management of user profiles, preferences, systems' characteristics, recommendations for accessibility and multimodality. Intelligent agents will manage multimodality and accessibility mechanisms during elicitation of user requirements for service usage and enrolment and will assist designers in selecting appropriate recommendations for their service designs. The work will be based on existing recommendations and standards. The integration of these components is seen as a joint effort within each one of the aforementioned workpackages. This phase involves the development of the general framework according to which design support tools will be incorporated into the design aid environment. During the work in this phase of the project, design and implementation the findings of the previous phase regarding user requirements and specifications of models for users and systems will be taken into account and will be tested upon their technical feasibility in order to be better defined in workpackage 7, Recommendations for Enhancement of Internet-based Services.
3. The system validation will be realised through the proto-cycling of the IRIS system's services at each pilot site (one for electronic commerce and one for teleworking). The enhancements of existing services so that they include requirements of users with special needs will be collected from the application of design support to designers of those Internet services. Testing will be done in user-group activities on all other aspects of the prototype system besides user acceptance: hardware, software and communications. Initial service costings and quality assessments will also be made. All quality components and quality standards will be reviewed and modifications will be made as required by the results of testing / review procedures. The main criteria for progressing to the demonstration phase will have been identified by the requirements analysis of requirements of users with special needs and will also include the completeness and robustness of the IRIS services and tools, in terms of providing high quality services that are judged to be ready for application in the real-life environment. The judgements will be based on both consumer and provider assessments as well as technical assessments. The assessment tests will address user acceptance, technical functionality, service quality and cost efficiency.
4. The dissemination activities for the IRIS system will begin early in the project's life by preparing marketing material, participating in related standardisation bodies, organising meetings / workshops / Video Conference sessions / Web based discussion lists etc, for the promotion of project activities to internal and external to the project members. All these activities will be maintained throughout the project's lifetime. The promotion of project activities and results will be also emphasised during the demonstrations of the system (Workpackages 8 and 9), through public demonstrations and presentations. Furthermore, concertation and clustering activities will be organised for facilitating the consortium's interaction with other consortia for exchanging products and services as well as for opening its own sites for developed implementations. In addition, it will seek agreements with other consortia who are applying in the same programme to mount parallel activities and to open pilot sites to different products and services as they become available. Following the demonstration and assessment of the IRIS system, a complete specification (functional, architectural, financial) of the IRIS Design aid environment will be produced. The IRIS dissemination and exploitation (Workpackage 11) will be based in these specifications for a) evaluating the design-for-all tools and methods for users with special needs, b) identifying their exploitation potential and c) identifying the value added chain of IRIS services and facilities offered to potential providers. During this phase the potential exploitation partners will be identified and tasks, extending beyond the end of the project, will be assigned.