Vocal Village Audioconferencing: A Collaborative SOHO Tool for Teleworkers with Physical Disabilities

In this paper we will examine how spatialized audioconferencing can be adapted for use by teleworkers with physical disabilities. We describe a field trial with a Japanese company using the Vocal Village (www.vocalvillage.net) spatialized audioconferencing system, where the voices of individual participants appear as if they are coming from different positions in space, distributed from left to right around the listeners’ head. The field trial included a number of activities, such as user profiling, requirements gathering, interface customization, task structuring, and evaluation. A team of seven teleworkers with physical disabilities developed a website during the ten days over which the field trial was run. They provided feedback on their experience in using the Vocal Village both during and after the trial. This paper will discuss how the audioconferencing interface and the Web design task were customized to meet the requirements of the trial participants. Results concerning usability, work satisfaction and related measures will also be resulted, along with suggestions for further initiatives and research in the area of audioconferencing for teleworkers with physical disabilities.