Principles of User Interface Design Enabling People With Blindness Professional Work in Administration of Energy Systems in Intelligent Buildings Comparable to Sighted Workers

Abstract

The development of ubiquitous computing in today’s society and the associated design of smart environments entails many new possibilities in supporting the daily activities of disabled people (i.e., people with blindness, seniors). The aforementioned also brings the development of ecologically oriented intelligent buildings (IB) that adapt to the needs of disabled people. At the same time, it is necessary to administrate these IB. The article presents the remote monitoring and administration of energy systems in an IB, which people with blindness can perform through a special user interface (UI) to handle complex professional tasks. The article is based on design science methodology. Using technical action research for evaluation and the cognitive walkthrough, observation, and work speed measurement for data collection, the article proposes and validates the UI for people with blindness providing heating regulation, zonal regulation and home photovoltaic power plant management and operation monitoring in an IB equipped with an ambient intelligence system. The UI allows people with blindness to work at a speed comparable to that of a sighted worker. Based on the implemented and evaluated solution, generalized principles of UI design for people with blindness are derived. The main scientific contribution of this article is to broaden the knowledge base with the principles of more complicated UI design for people with blindness for cases, where possibilities of mobile UI or speech remote control are insufficient, e.g. in professional work, where they must be competitive with the sighted workers. From a practical point of view, the article provides recommendations for designing UI for people with blindness with an emphasis on ensuring the speed, reliability, and accuracy of control. Furthermore, the article discusses new job opportunities for people with blindness in connection with the remote administration of IB, the number of which will increase.