The MuseIT EU project aims to co-design, develop, and co-evaluate a multisensory, user-centred platform for enriched and inclusive engagement with cultural assets. It follows equal opportunity for all as its core principle. There is a market niche for an improved understanding of disability and diversity of needs to facilitate and broaden accessibility when developing technological systems for the digital transformation of the cultural heritage museums. 

MuseIT explores these needs in close contact with people with disabilities in co-design and co-research processes. The project focuses on the development of digital technologies to represent cultural heritage artefacts in multiple modalities by focusing on detecting semantic content about cultural heritage objects and translating their semantic content to knowledge graphs that are further used to create multisensory representations of them. 

These developments include the idea of a haptogram vocabulary with static vs. dynamic patterns carrying word vs. sentence meaning mapped to the body. One version of the vocabulary rethinks patterns from Social Haptic Communication (SHC), employed in co-design with users by our tool called HaptoDesigner. The other version automatically converts a high number of precomputed word embeddings to haptic signals for the Unitouch pattern design studio. While holding the promise to translate cultural heritage objects to the tactile domain, work in progress is also exploring conceptual vs. technological bottlenecks to enable their presentation in the context of a virtual museum.

MuseIT also explores the options of cultural objects in other modes, e.g. converting an image to sound, presenting 3D tactile representations and including these possibilities into virtual inclusive museum exhibitions.

Conventionally, the accessibility research community centers most of its efforts on designing assistive technologies and systems related to single categories of impairments. Although this approach has contributed to valuable progress and advancements in the field, there is a growing consensus among accessibility researchers that focusing on designing technologies for single impairments oversimplifies disability since this approach may fail to adequately address the real-world experiences of a significant population of users with complex needs. Despite challenges related to conducting research with users living with multiple, profound, or complex disabilities, it is essential in terms of future work that the accessibility research community adopts a more inclusive approach where users with lived experience of multiple disabilities are directly informing and shaping the design of assistive systems and accessible technologies. Therefore, we propose the 2nd International Workshop on Accessibility Research and Users with Multiple Disabilities or Complex Needs. The workshop will act as a forum for participants to share their perspectives related to challenges and opportunities in designing accessible systems that consider the multidimensional needs of users living with multiple disabilities. This workshop intends to challenge current paradigms in the accessibility field, share latest work and foster future collaborations.

With climate change, the frequency and spread of wildfires have intensified globally, bearing disastrous impactson wildlife, the economy, and human well-being. Efforts on broad fronts are required, including proactive publicparticipation. However, studies related to citizen engagement in the context of wildfire management remainlimited. Therefore, there is a need for further studies in this area. This paper reports on ongoing work conductedin the context of an H2020 project called SILVANUS. The study investigates the methods, practices, needs andchallenges related to citizen engagement in wildfire management. The authors have developed a tentative citizenengagement framework, and preliminary results related to citizens' needs and challenges are presented. The studyidentifies relevant topics, training contents, and methods that can be used for public engagement in wildfiremanagement. The paper contributes towards designing future engagement modalities, technologies and trainingmaterials related to wildfire management and potentially even other crises.

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the preliminary findings in an ongoing study conducted in MuseIT – a Horizon Europe project (Oct. 2022 – Sept. 2025) – that proposes technologies facilitating and widening access to cultural assets in an ‘inclusive way’. The paper reports on the results of a literature review and the first ideation workshop conducted in January 2023. The workshop participants were representatives of cultural institutions and users of cultural institutions, and/or consumers and producers of cultural assets, with a focus on people with disabilities. The findings indicated that digital environment is greatly appreciated by participants with disabilities for both communication with others and for self-expression. Cultural institutions are aware of the variety of needs, including the need for collaborative development of services accessible to all. There remain, however, challenges and unmet needs. To address these, there is a need to involve people with disabilities – who are experts on such needs based on lived experiences – in the design of tools and services aimed at meeting their needs. Furthermore, there is a need for improved understanding of disability and diversity of needs, in projects involved in developing technological systems to facilitate and broaden accessibility.

In this paper we present a software and hardware toolkit called HaptiDesigner, useful for work with creation of haptic patterns and beyond. The toolkit includes two printed circuit boards each with 32 and 40 channels which can also be connected for an extended number of channels. It also includes a PC-based interface for ease of design and the software needed for encoding and storing the related instructions for activation of actuator motors. HaptiDesigner toolkit has been successfully used for the design of meaning bearing patterns for haptic communication. Some examples are provided. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Historically, the accessibility community has focused on designing assistive technologies and systems related to single categories of impairments. While this approach is justifiable and contributes to the advancement of the field, many researchers argue that designing technologies for one impairment at a time contributes to an oversimplification of disability and does not reflect real-world experiences of a significant number of users who live with multiple impairments. How can the accessibility field leverage theories and concepts from other disciplines (e.g. disability studies, medical humanities, social work, engineering, education) to support more appropriate and inclusive technologies for users with complex needs How can future assistive technologies take into consideration a diverse combination of sensory, cognitive, and physical characteristics In this workshop, we invite researchers and practitioners from different disciplines to share their perspectives related to challenges and opportunities in designing accessible systems that consider the multidimensional and often complex needs of users living with multiple impairments.