A Modular Suite to Support Human-Smartphone Interaction for People with Motor Skill Impairments

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are nowadays not only the de facto choice for interpersonal communication, social networking or Web access, but also an important tool for an increasing number of every-day activities. Thus, maximum accessibility for people with disability is very important to ensure social inclusion and to promote an independent style of life. In this paper we present a suite of hardware and software components that allows people with motor skills impairments to control a mobile device via switch sensors for the exploitation of specific user’s residual abilities. A gateway and a headset adapter allow the user to connect switches or a power wheelchair control system to the smartphone in different ways (wired or wireless). A simplified user interface on the mobile device can be used to access the main functionalities (voice call, SMS, media player), whereas a scanning keyboard enables textual input in other pre-existing apps.