Accessible Digital TV: a research agenda

The potential of Interactive Digital TV (IDTV) is enormous, given its reachability, the potential ability to provide highly personalized services (when users identify themselves using smartcards, for example to get access to individual egovernment services, to health information and services, to social networks), and to act as yet another outlet for using the web. However these advantages can be hindered by difficulties of using it, including accessibility barriers. Similarly to the web, however, developers of IDTV applications will have no control on the actual devices the user will be using, and will have to address the needs of a very heterogeneous audience. Input devices are likely to be a major hurdle for achieving accessibility. Remote controllers are already very complex devices based on modal interaction and overloading of controls. Furthermore, they support a limited input channel, that poses significant constraints on the kind of applications that can and should be developed. Another hurdle to overcome is the possible resistance of users to actually use and engage in applications delivered through the IDTV. While over time we should expect that the experience of users in managing digital technologies will increase, during the first years after the switchover, the IDTV will be used also by people that are laggards in terms of technology adoption. Most of them will probably be older adults, with their own accessibility needs. Only if these needs will be met, then IDTV will be able to reach its full potential. I think that a research agenda on accessible IDTV should include methodological aspects. Accessibility is not only conformance to a set of guidelines1. While adoption and development of accessibility guidelines is important, it should not be the only aim of the research community. In [3] I discuss some of the shortcomings of an accessibility-as-conformance viewpoint, which we might be able to avoid for IDTV. I believe the following issues are central to the topic of accessibile IDTV.