need to write an small 2-4 pages review

Running Head: IoT for People With Special Needs 1

IoT for People with Special Needs 4

IoT for People with Special Needs

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Requirement gathering is an integral stage in any system development life cycle. It’s even more crucial when the information to gather comes from people with special needs. Conventional methods of collecting data like interviews, questionnaires are not reliable methods when collecting data from such a group of people. Due to this limitation, it’s important to complement such data-gathering methods with the latest invention on the Internet of Things.

During system design, active user involvement is necessary if the successful implementation of the anticipated software is to be realized. A user-centered approach is key in the requirement gathering phase. Handicapped people are usually segregated as they all depend on other people for their daily living. Their disability prevents them from being economically active and socially engaged. The Internet of things has stepped in to bridge this digital divide by providing a mechanism to foster the support required for them to achieve a good quality of life (Palaniswami, 2020).

Although understanding requirements from the special needs people are difficult, researchers have leveraged the devices such as wearable, sensors, and smartphones. Due to their extensive use, they provide a large volume of data that can assist researcher’s design applications in the context of the daily activities the users engage in. A variety of scenarios are used by researchers such as observing how people with disabilities can shop at the market, how they access library resources in the school environment etc. The data captured during these scenarios are used in the requirement gathering stage.

IoT comes in handy to shorten the time it would take researchers to obtain crucial data from disabled people. The main approaches to gathering data require the researchers to have direct or physical contact with the participants. This compounds the problem further as it opens the window to the incomprehensible analysis of the gathered information. Moreover, access to the participants is a lengthy process as it requires researchers to obtain authority from organizations that protect disabled people. Also, obtaining consent from the participant is another challenge that makes it difficult to get the data. Normally, disabled people are usually few in numbers and sparsely located in different geographical areas. The result of all these drawbacks is a low participant turn out which inadvertently leads to insufficient data that is not comprehensive enough to represent their needs.

Lack of technical skills for the people interviewing disabled people is another challenge experienced by researchers. Disabled people tend to get exhausted in a short period and therefore, researchers need to spend a limited time with them. Shorter study periods become necessary if researchers are to get reliable user requirements. Cultural background can also lead to gathering incorrect data. Some people from different backgrounds have biased opinions regarding disabled people and this affects the truthfulness of the data obtained.

Disabled people continue to face discrimination across the digital divide. Although this is often overlooked, many disabled people find it difficult to access online public resources like websites. This denies them the changing opportunities such as employment, healthcare, and education. To guarantee inclusivity for all internet users, the website should be designed with high contrast colors, making them have speech recognition capabilities and generally making IoT devices user-friendly.

IoT offers disabled individuals opportunities that allow them to stay connected in a technologically connected world. IoT offers mobility assistance (Palaniswami, 2020). There are mobile applications available in play stores that allow disabled pedestrians to alert the traffic lights and to request them more time to cross the road. This is achieved through the interoperability between the mobile application and the traffic lights software. Such technologies break the physical barriers that disabled people face, enabling them to reach public transport hubs with much more ease. IoT devices such as smartphones help disabled people with both adaptive and assistive infrastructure to overcome mobility challenges.

IoT devices can assist disabled people to be able to read and understand his/her surrounding environment with precision. This is very useful to blind people. A good example of this application is the Microsoft Seeing AI app, designed to assist visually challenged to learn about their immediate surroundings (Raufi, 2019). Google has also introduced Cloud Vision API to create apps and devices that have recognition and classification features. This helps blind people to be able to contextualize their surroundings further eliminating communication barriers they face.

Improving autonomy is another way IoT is helping the disabled community to be more independent while doing simple chores like switching on a refrigerator, changing the temperature for the shower without worrying about how different knobs affect the temperature of the water. Smart watches that can read emails, convert text to braille, and also read aloud text. Other technologies like insertable insole use vibrations to guide blind people to navigate the stairs in a building. Such innovative developments help them also to avoid hitting objects in sidewalk pavements.

My proposal for the future developments to help the disabled people is for the scientist to focus on developing robots that can help the physically challenged individuals overcome physical barriers. Also, car manufacturers should develop virtual assistants to help disabled people drive cars with ease and more safely. To effectively realize these aspirations, organize will be required to invest more in Artificial intelligence to automate processes in business environments. Strong 5G networks will be needed for IoT devices to function at on high speed. This calls on the telecommunication companies to invest in making their bandwidth stronger.

These ideas will be measured in several ways. The emergences of ‘Smart cities’ where civic amenities are networked and data is centrally analyzed will the next big thing that will define technological advancement soon (Mohammed, 2018). Also, the invention of devices that can process natural language effectively will measure the level of success for IoT infrastructure.

In conclusion, the IoT has become part of every aspect of our daily living. IoT innovation has given hope to disabled people who earlier were denied employment opportunities due to their physical challenges. Visually impaired people can now be able to read emails and perform small tasks autonomously.

References

Ferati, M., Kurti, A., Vogel, B., & Raufi, B. (2019, May). Augmenting requirements gathering for people with special needs using IoT: a position paper. In Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (pp. 48-51).

Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2020). Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future generation computer systems, 29(7), 1645-1660.

Kim, T. H., Ramos, C., & Mohammed, S. (2018). Smart city and IoT.