Educational robots and their control interfaces: how can we make them more accessible for Special Education?

Galvez Trigo, Maria, Standen, Penelope and Cobb, Sue (2022) Educational robots and their control interfaces: how can we make them more accessible for Special Education? In: HCI International Conference 2022.

Full content URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05039-8_2

Documents
Educational robots and their control interfaces: how can we make them more accessible for Special Education?
Accepted manuscript
[img] PDF
HCII_2022_MJGalvezTrigo.pdf - Whole Document
Restricted to Repository staff only until 16 June 2023.

3MB
Item Type:Conference or Workshop contribution (Paper)
Item Status:Live Archive

Abstract

Existing design standards and guidelines provide guidance on what factors to consider to produce interactive systems that are not only usable, but also accessible. However, these standards are usually general, and when it comes to designing an interactive system for children with Learning Difficulties or Disabilities (LD) and/or Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) they are often not specific enough, leading to systems that are not fit for that purpose. If we dive into the area of educational robotics, we face even more issues, in part due to the relative novelty of these technologies. In this paper, we present an analysis of 26 existing educational robots and the interfaces used to control them. Furthermore, we present the results of running focus groups and a questionnaire with 32 educators with expertise in Special Education and parents at four different institutions, to explore potential accessibility issues of existing systems and to identify desirable characteristics. We conclude introduc- ing an initial set of design recommendations, to complement existing design standards and guidelines, that would help with producing future more accessible control interfaces for educational robots, with an especial focus on helping pupils with LDs and/or ASC.

Keywords:Access to education and learning, assistive robots, design for all best practice, design for children with and without disabilities, ASC, learning difficulties, educational robots
Subjects:G Mathematical and Computer Sciences > G440 Human-computer Interaction
G Mathematical and Computer Sciences > G400 Computer Science
H Engineering > H671 Robotics
Divisions:College of Science > School of Computer Science
ID Code:48058
Deposited On:04 Apr 2022 14:26

Repository Staff Only: item control page