Function standards for interfacing mobiles with assistive devices

Today’s mobile communications devices are already used for much more than just making phone calls, but also for taking pictures, playing music or games and for sending and receiving text messages. By adding other services this technology could allow the ageing user to remain part of our modern society where people can be in contact anytime, anywhere, anyplace, and obtain help and support at will. For persons with impairments which affect their use of these technologies, affordable, effective and usable assistive devices can be made available when based on standardization of technical interfaces to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) devices. This article describes the work performed by the Technical Committee Human Factors at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI HF). It provides a description of the functional requirements for interfaces of mobile devices that are specific to different types of assistive devices, and invites the mobile phone industry to participate in the extension of relevant AT (from ATtention) commands.