Call for Papers: Accessibility and Way-finding, Navigation and Exploration systems
Online Symposium 3 December 2014

Invitation

The W3C WAI Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) invites you to contribute to the online symposium on Accessibility and Way-finding, Navigation and Exploration Systems.

• Symposium date: 03 December 2014
• Abstract submission date: 20 October 2014

Accepted papers will be published online in an attributable form as part of the symposium proceedings. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to participate in the symposium panel.

Introduction

Issues of way-finding, navigation and exploration of places are everyday challenges for many people with disabilities. Currently, way-finding, navigation and exploration applications are increasing in popularity for a variety of other purposes such as in-car turn to turn navigation, lifestyle, gaming etc., especially due to the increasing trend in mobile computing. Such applications are today are being linked to a number of related dynamic information such as traffic and weather conditions. This trend poses a challenge and an opportunity for people with disabilities. If maps were linked with accessibility-related information and provided to people with disabilites through accessible systems, way-finding, navigation and exploration problems could be tackled with a number of different applications.

This symposium will bring together researchers, practitioners, and users with disabilities, to explore new and on-going research and developemnt in the ares of accessibility and way-finding, navigation and exploration systems. The goal is to discuss different approaches, problems and applications for way-finding, navigation and exploration of people with disabilites. This includes the discussion of how can such systems become accessible for persons with disabilities and also the discussion of how such systems can provide useful services that can answer to their every-day way-finding, navigation and exploration problems.

See the main Way-finding: navigation and exploration for accessibility Symposium page for more Background, User Group, and Objectives.

Important Dates

• 20 October 2014: Deadline for paper submissions
• 03 November 2014: Author notifications
• 10 November 2014: Deadline for final HTML publication-ready paper submissions
• 17 November 2014: Registration opens
• 03 December 2014: Online symposium event, probably 15:00-17:00 UTC

Scope

Users: The groups facing the biggest problems in the area are people with mobility and vision impairments and those people cognitive impairments. However the scope of the symposium is extending to users with any kind of disability or age-related impairement.

Applications / Tools: The focus is on applications and tools that help tackling one or more of the problems of way-finding, navigation and exploration of places. Such tools could include GPS navigators, alternative navigation systems, indoor navigation systems (apps for navigation and way-finding in airports/ museums etc.), exploration applications for finding specific places in an area (restaurants, cafes, museums, bars, etc.)

Technologies:

Standards:

Contributions

We invite researchers, practitioners, users, and others to submit research and position papers that address the following issues and challenges:

• Accessibility of navigation systems
  • How accessible are current way-finding systems for people with disabilities?
  • What methods are available to present information about the surroundings and navigation instructions in an accessible way with as little distraction as possible?
  • How can current standardization actions dealing with UI help in providing accessible navigation and wayfinding UIs?
  • How accessible are the notifications in way-finding systems, QR codes, alerts etc and how can they be improved?
  • How does user modeling tie in with way-finding systems?
  • Can the user preferences be included in such a system? (What some people might find useful (e.g. beep on approach), others would find annoying.)
  • How do I tell the system my preferences?

• Linked and Open Data for Accessibility (of places)
  • How can open-data be used to describe accessbility of places?
  • What kind of vocabularies, taxonomies etc already exist, such as in building codes that can be re-used?
  • How can we best develop navigational algorithms tying such accesbility information with user needs and profiles?
  • What sources of information can provide such data?
  • Is crowd-sourcing a potential solution for gathering such infromation and what are the limitations / problems?
  • What other sources of dynamic information could be used to provide complete solutions? (e.g. binding with calendar to get notifications and guidance to get to a meeting on time).

• Interoperability of navigation and way-finding systems.
  • How can way-finding systems integrate into the web-based environment?
  • What methods are available to allow applications to maximize interoperability of geolocation technology?
  • Can there be one integrated web-based system to provide a common ground for different positioning technologies to cooperate?
  • How can open-data help in that direction?
  • Is it possible to seamlessly integrate indoor and outdoor way-finding combining different technologies?

We particularly welcome submissions that describe:

• Empirical studies on accessibility related problems of way-finding, navigation and exploration systems
• Approaches followed for way-finding, navigation and exploration systems
• Experiences and lessons learned from already developed systems.
• Specific recommendations for design and development of such systems

Paper Submission

Paper submission closes on 20 October 2014.

Papers should be extended abstracts of about 1,000 words. We encourage concise contributions that are scientifically sound with appropriate references. Papers should clearly explain the:

• Problem addressed
• Relevant background
• Approach - how was the problem addressed, what methodologies were used, what strategies were pursued to address the problem
• Challenges - major obstacles or difficulties found during the process or that could be encountered in the way forward
• Outcomes
• Future research

Papers must be submitted in the template provided, be valid HTML, and meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

Review Process

Contributions will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee and each paper will get at least two/three independent reviews for criteria including relevance, clarity, soundness and power of the arguments and contribution to knowledge about user modeling for accessibility. Papers will be accepted based on this criteria and space availability.

Copyright Policy

Accepted papers will be published online in an attributable form as part of the symposium proceedings.
(For more information, see the FAQ sections RDWG Publications and RDWG Practice for Writership and Credits.)

The Symposium Report will be published under the W3C Document License. Paper authors shall grant W3C a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to copy, publish, use, and modify the contribution and to distribute the contribution under a Berkley Shell Distribution - BSD License or one with more restrictive terms, as well as a right and license of the same scope to any derivative works prepared by the W3C and based on, or incorporating all or part of the contribution. The Contributor further agrees that any derivative works of this contribution prepared by the W3C shall be solely owned by the W3C.

Symposium Chairs

• Christos Kouroupetroglou (CNT, Greece)
• Annika Nietzio (Research Institute Technology and Disability (FTB), Germany)
• Vivienne Conway (Edith Cowan University, Web Key IT Pty Ltd, Australia)

Scientific Committee

[To be announced]