Empath-D: VR-based empathetic app design for accessibility

With app-based interaction increasingly permeating all aspects of daily living, it is essential to ensure that apps are designed to be inclusive and are usable by a wider audience such as the elderly, with various impairments (e.g., visual, audio and motor). We propose Empath-D, a system that foster...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: KIM, Wonjung, CHOO, Kenny Tsu Wei, LEE, Youngki, MISRA, Archan, BALAN, Rajesh Krishna
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4055
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5058/viewcontent/mobisys18_10_kim.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary:With app-based interaction increasingly permeating all aspects of daily living, it is essential to ensure that apps are designed to be inclusive and are usable by a wider audience such as the elderly, with various impairments (e.g., visual, audio and motor). We propose Empath-D, a system that fosters empathetic design, by allowing app designers, in-situ, to rapidly evaluate the usability of their apps, from the perspective of impaired users. To provide a truly authentic experience, Empath-D carefully orchestrates the interaction between a smartphone and a VR device, allowing the user to experience simulated impairments in a virtual world while interacting naturally with the app, using a real smartphone. By carefully orchestrating the VR-smartphone interaction, Empath-D tackles challenges such as preserving low-latency app interaction, accurate visualization of hand movement and low-overhead perturbation of I/O streams. Experimental results show that user interaction with Empath-D is comparable (both in accuracy and user perception) to real-world app usage, and that it can simulate impairment effects as effectively as a custom hardware simulator.