A Concrete Example of Inclusive Design: Deaf-Oriented Accessibility

One of the continuing challenges of Human Computer Interaction research is the full inclusion of people with special needs into the digital world. In particular, this crucial category includes people that experience some kind of limitation in exploiting traditional information communication channels. One immediately thinks about blind people, and several lines of research aim at addressing their needs. On the contrary, limitations suffered by deaf people are often underestimated. This is often the result of a kind of ignorance or misunderstanding of the real nature of their communication difficulties. This chapter aims at both increasing the awareness of deaf problems in the digital world, and at proposing the project of a comprehensive solution for their better inclusion. As for the former goal, we will provide a birds-eye presentation of history and evolution of understanding of deafness issues, and of strategies to address them. As for the latter, we will present the design, implementation and evaluation of the first nucleus of a comprehensive digital framework to facilitate the access of deaf people into the digital world.