Development of an Interactive Kiosk with Screen Amplifier for the Elderly and Those with Low Vision

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that in 2006 almost 37 million people were blind and 124 million had some type of visual disability, a number that is growing year by year. In order to ensure social inclusion of these people, governments of different countries have been investing heavily in public policies that allow the development of suitable technological solutions. In this context, computers are the keysolutions with their general and application-specific software that include, among others, educational, office, e-commerce and e-banking applications. However, despite the advances already made, we are still far from the ideal situation. An example is the automated teller machine (ATM) that, with captions and images of reduced size, does not satisfy the needs of the visually disabled or the elderly. For both, as glasses are not completely useful, the reading of a simple text may be turned into an almost impossible activity. Thus, this paper presents a proposal for an interactive kiosk with multisensory resources, especially for people with low vision or the elderly. This solution exploits visual, auditory and tactile feedback and provides an integrated and accessible service using a totem of self-service. ACM Classification and Subject Descriptors: K.4.2 Social Issues – Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities, H.5.2 User Interfaces – Haptic I/O, Input devices and strategies