Industry Involvement with RERC Projects

R1- User-Centered Research:  The Survey of User Needs

The Survey of User Needs (SUN) was created during our 2001-2006 funding cycle to study the usefulness and usability of wireless devices by persons with disabilities.  With input from consumers, as well as organizations including Research In Motion, The Hearing Loss Association of America, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, we revised the survey in 2007.  The result is that the 2007-2011 SUN is easier and faster to complete, and the data gathered is even more useful to industry.

We want to make the information we gather from our survey as relevant and usable as possible to the wireless industry.  We welcome your feedback on our report, including additional data you might find helpful in serving your customers with disabilities.

R2 – Customer-Driven Usability Assessment

Our Survey of User Needs and other consumer activities have taught us that choosing a wireless product can be complicated and confusing for customers with disabilities. To help consumers choose, the Wireless RERC is launching a new website: www.MyWirelessReview.com.  MyWirelessReview.com goes beyond simply providing information on product features by creating a forum for customers of all ages and abilities to share their experiences using wireless products. 

Members of our Consumer Advisory Network (CAN) contribute to MyWirelessReview.com through product testing.  AT&T provided the phones and airtime for our first round of testing.  As product tests are posted and the forum develops, we expect industry to find MyWirelessReview.com a valuable resource for insight into how wireless technologies are selected and used by people of all ages and abilities.

R3 – Collaborative Policy Approaches to Promoting Equitable Access

This project examines public policy issues that influence equitable access to wireless technology.  Conducting policy analysis and providing policy direction on such varied emerging technologies as hearing aid compatibility, wireless emergency alerting protocols and municipal WiFi networks, Wireless RERC policy researchers evaluate policy and regulatory barriers to craft approaches targeted at enhanced access for persons with disabilities.  We are grateful for the opportunities provided by the Wireless Technology Forum to participate on periodic speaking panels during their monthly events in Atlanta.  In articulating the critical importance of universal access to wireless technologies, the RERC points to a gap often area by many business executives; that by considering the needs of the disabled they may uncover alternative revenue generating areas for their business.

R4 – Advanced Auditory Interfaces

Based on their prior research on “spearcons”, the Advanced Auditory Interfaces team has been continuing to compile data into their Knowledge Base, which will be used to develop design guidelines for auditory interfaces in mobile wireless devices. The team is currently using a variety of Nokia products, such as the N91 and N95 running Symbian, and the N800 running OS2008, as development platforms.   Using Flashlight, and working within one application on the device at a time, they have successfully enhanced menus that sit on top of the OS.  However, there is a limit to this, as to be truly successful in enhancing all the menus within the device they need the ability to access and manipulate the underlying menu structure of the OS.  Because of this the team is investigating several other development environments, such a RIM’s Java on the BlackBerry and LG hardware and software, which will allow them greater development flexibility and depth inside the OS.  The use of auditory displays in wireless products, in addition to visual displays, can overcome many usability hurdles, especially for users with visual impairments. 

D3 – Wireless Emergency Communications

Windows Mobile OS has proven to be an effective prototype development environment for the Wireless RERC’s project researching wireless emergency communications (WEC).  With support from April Cline, executive director of the Georgia Reading Radio Service, the RERC WEC team held its first full technical field trial at GARRS headquarters on February 1, 2008.  Eighteen participants, both visually impaired and sighted volunteers, took part in a full-day study to gauge the effectiveness and accessibility of the emergency alerting system in its current form.  During this test, three separate weather alerts of increasing intensity were issued to participants over a period of time.  Alerts were presented on the Smartphones in a variety of formats; auditorily in the form of an EBS tone and a synthetic speech program capable of reading the alert, and visually on the screen of the phone as the text of the SMS message.  Data gathered from this test will prove to be invaluable in helping the team further develop the software of the system, as well as help in streamlining future field trials scheduled at Public Broadcasting of Atlanta and NTID.  The WEC team is indebted to AT&T for providing both the phones and airtime, and to all of the GARRS staff for hosting this important first trial.

The WEC research project has developed an alerting system that monitors the National Weather Service’s CAP messages.  A cell phone user must subscribe to the system via their zip code.  When a severe weather alert is issued that matches a subscriber’s zip code, an SMS message is sent to that subscriber’s wireless device highlighting the weather emergency and other important information. 

D4 – Deaf 911 – Ensuring Access to Emergency Assistance

Prototyping on a variety of Smartphone platforms supporting Symbian C++ such as the Nokia 6682 and Panasonic x700, the Deaf 911 project has developed software that emulates a TTY so that a hearing impaired user can communicate during an emergency with the 911 Public Safety Answering Point’s TTY systems.  When an emergency occurs the deaf user initiates Deaf 911 from their phone’s menu.  The software then sends out a continuous TTY signal of a default message to let the 911 operator know that the call is TTY.   The user is then free to type a message, similarly to a typical SMS, that is encoded and sent to the 911 operator.  The operator can then type back and the phone records the incoming TTY signal, decodes that signal and displays the response as a text message.  The Deaf 911 team is pursuing opportunities for deployment of this technology into mainstream wireless devices.

T1 – Promoting Awareness of Access and Usability Needs

To effectively promote universal design in wireless technologies, the RERC must touch the two main stakeholders, the wireless industry and the customer.  Two specific projects best highlight these efforts… 

For industry, the Wireless RERC has developed brief, hands-on universal design seminars.  In 2007, personnel of AT&T’s eXperience group, IDEO, and Sapient Corporation participated in these seminars.  These two-hour events are an optimal resource to open the eyes of designers to the needs of a particularly large user group they may have overlooked, individuals with disabilities.    Pertinent user statistics and hands-on empathic exercises are used to show how good design practices can overcome the obstacles many of us face when using wireless devices in our everyday lives. 

The first of our efforts toward consumer outreach addresses the need by hearing-aid users for help in finding an appropriate cell phone.  Hearing aid compatibility has become a major concern for both hard-of-hearing consumers and industry.  The Wireless RERC has partnered with the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) to produce a training video aimed at educating wireless in-store staff, consumers and audiologists on the proper methods of evaluating a cell phone with a hearing aid.