Abstract
Approximately 15% of the world's population have some form of disability and the majority use apps on their mobile devices to help them in their daily lives with communication, healthcare, or for entertainment purposes. It is not, however, easy for users with impairments to choose the most suitable apps since this will depend on their particular personal characteristics or circumstances in a specific context, and because such users require apps with certain accessibility features which are not always specified in the app description. In order to overcome such difficulties, it is necessary to obtain a user profile that gathers the user's personal details, abilities, disabilities, skills, and interests to facilitate selection. The basis for our research work is to develop an app that recommends a set of apps to users with disabilities. In this respect, the focus of this paper is to obtain a semantic user profile model on which more precise search requests can be performed. The disability we have chosen to concentrate on is that of visual impairment. We propose an ontology-based user profile that matches users' characteristics, disabilities, and interests, and which not only simplifies the classification process but also provides a mechanism for linking them with existing disability ontologies, assistive devices, accessibility concepts, etc. Moreover, thanks to the inclusion of semantic relations and rules, it is possible to reason and infer new information that can be used to make more personalized recommendations than a simple app store search.
Highlights
Mobile apps enable users to select suitable content or functions according to their preferences, interests, abilities, context, culture, etc
The Apps Ontology gathers a series of basic features and other complementary ones and this constitutes the app profile
One example of user profile might be: User_S who is a 54-year-old man who suffers from farsightedness and deafness, who is interested in yoga, and wants to go on a diet, and the system must identify the apps to recommend to this user
Summary
Mobile apps enable users to select suitable content or functions according to their preferences, interests, abilities, context, culture, etc. In order to decide which app to download, the user must obtain more information by reviewing the app description and reading reviews in order to determine whether it meets their needs before they install it. This is by no means an easy task and further complicated by the fact that names, descriptions, or reviews might be written in a foreign language or perhaps the descriptions are not available, are incomplete, or are in an inaccessible format.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
