Strategies for adapting mobile phone devices for use by disabled people

The use of mobile phones and other mobile communications devices has become truly ubiquitous, not only as a platform for making phone calls, but also as a camera, music player and games device. When making a purchase of a new mobile phone, users will tend to make their choice on the set of additional functions that they want within a certain price range. They will assume that the basic phone/sms/phone book functionality is already provided. Disabled users, however, will have to take a completely different perspective. Simply accessing the basic phone functionality in a way that is usable may be a significant challenge. Accessing the additional functions (camera, radio, music player etc) may simply be impossible. Because of this, they are excluded from expectations of choice enjoyed by most European citizens. ETSI special task force (STF) 304 has been looking at this issue on behalf of the European Community and the telecommunications industry in Europe. In this paper we will provide some very practical, non-technical illustrations of the work of the STF, and demonstrate the problems and the proposed solution, in order to contribute to the "design for all" debate in a concrete and effective way.