User Centered Design for persons with disabilities : How persons with cerebral palsy can be included in the design process

Abstract: The user centered design process is a framework built on methods aiming at including the user in the design process. When designing a system that is going to be used by persons suffering from severe disabilities, a number of unique difficulties are introduced.This thesis investigates what particular issues that has to be considered when designing for eye tracking based interaction and how user inclusion can be achieved despite the presence of severe disabilities.Persons from three habilitation centers in the Stockholm area were included in the study which was implemented as an iterative design process, including a number of methods common within user centered design.The result of this study indicates that many of the well-recognized methods in user centered design can be used when including users with cerebral palsy. Focus is shifted slightly away from the user towards other persons in the vicinity. To achieve high usability the system must facilitate individual customizations of the interface regarding the colors, sizes and placements of objects. A method of two step selection, reducing the numbers of unintentional selections, is also presented.