Assistive smartphone for people with special needs : The Personal Social Assistant

The goal of the Personal Social Assistant (PSA) is to help those people who just cannot handle a mobile phone, a GPS, etc. The PSA is a novel multimodal assistive interface for smartphones, i.e., a customizable, scalable layer above the standard software that is already available on these devices. Hence, not only the interface is made more usable, but also new accessible technologies are included in the PSA to simplify certain daily living tasks. Some examples of our helpful technological innovations are photo-based GPS, scalable interfaces and an externally accessible content management system that uses SMS push technology. By using the PSA, everyone can get access to ICT. For elderly and people with cognitive, visual and/or motor disabilities the PSA can be the key to integration into society.