Discussions on Accessibility in Industrial Automation Systems H. Vieritz*, F. Yazdi**, N. Jazdi**, D. Schilberg*, S. Jeschke*, and P. Göhner** * RWTH Aachen University / ZLW-IMA, Aachen, Germany ** University of Stuttgart / IAS, Stuttgart, Germany * {vieritz, daniel.schilberg, sabina.jeschke}@ zlw-ima.rwth-aachen.de **{farzan.yazdi, nasser.jazdi, peter.goehner}@ ias.uni-stuttgart.de Abstract— Importance of industrial automation systems [1], also known as technical devices, has been a growing area during the past decades. Web applications from one side and industrial automation systems from the other side have become a standard part of people’s daily life and more user groups have to deal with them. Hence they must be accessible to all users. Unfortunately, often by the development of such systems, certain user groups are being neglected. Therefore, a systematic concept is required to support the development of industrial automation systems and Web applications. In this paper, we will present the concept, which is proposed in the context of a research project funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) a . We will discuss the suited methods to effectively assess accessibility requirements. I. INTRODUCTION Pervasive computing as a growing phenomenon has attracted many companies and manufacturers. Progressively more industrial automation systems are becoming a typical part of people’s daily life. On the other hand, assessing accessibility to industrial automation systems is an essential requirement, if they are to be used by all members of the society. While accessibility has been more considered in Web applications, industrial automation systems have been less considered in this respect. Nowadays in many cases, Web applications are being combined into industrial automation systems. Many Web-based technologies such as HTML or XML are so common that are often being adopted for industrial automation systems; e.g. for presentation of the user interfaces (UIs) or in Automotive Open System Architec- ture (AUTOSAR). Clearly, all users should have free access to the industrial automation systems, including those with disabilities. Unfortunately, often certain user groups are being neglected by the development. The needs of users vary strongly, depending on their capabilities and expectations etc. This causes the development process very complex. Therefore, integration of accessibility requirements into the development process is cumber- some. User-centered Design (UCD) [2] is strongly recommended for integrating none-functional require- ments, in our case accessibility [3], into the development process, since none-functional requirements can strongly affect the system architecture [4]. Hence, it is reasonable to consider them early enough before the architecture has been designed. The integration of UCD in Model-driven a We highly appreciate Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for funding this project. Engineering (MDE) provides a formalized development process. For better understanding, we will explain the proposed concept with an example. Our example is imaginary and should only serve as a support throughout this paper. Furthermore, with this example, we can better show the application of the concept in real life. Our example considers shopping in a futuristic supermarket by visually impaired customers. Typically, supermarkets are not accessible for visually impaired customers without the support of another person. Non-visual guidance to particular departments and items is missing. Apart from degradation of the quality of life for visually impaired customers, extra personal effort is required for helping such customers around. These aspects are investigated in a project running between RWTH Aachen University and University of Stuttgart. The example considers a supermarket with various items available for the customers to buy and the consulting service in the context of a supermarket. Considering these two factors in the context of shopping, the accessibility (see section Accessibility) of a pervasive system refers to free access to the products and services (considering its intended usage), for all users including those with disabilities; i.e. all customers should be able to access info materials or products in the supermarket and obtain the offered services. The proposed concept is UCD-based. Moreover, it relies on MDE approaches. For more simplicity, we have limited ourselves to the UI of an intelligent system that helps guiding the visually impaired customers throughout the supermarket and provide him with his/her required information. In this article, first we address basics of accessibility and UCD, which are the basics for our concept. Further- more, we will demonstrate our conception using an example. In the final section, we will provide a conclusion and outlook in the field of accessibility development of industrial automation systems. II. RELATED RESEARCH Along with MDE instructions and for the purpose of integrating accessibility into the UI, the UI must be modeled. However, modeling UI with conventional methods, e.g. UML is not possible. The existing approaches for modeling UI can be grouped into two categories: 1) practical approaches, e.g. User Interface Markup Language (UIML), User Interface Description Language (UIDL), or Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and 2) analytical approaches, e.g. User Interface Extensible Markup Language (UsiXML) or