Análisis de accesiblidad en interfaces de lavadoras

Abstract

The interaction with consume products has been changing due to the development of the technology, which often turns out to be a barrier rather than an opportunity for people with disabilities. Appliances in general and particularly washing machines have gone from having physical controls to have touch controls. For that reason, the main objective of this paper is to analyse the accessibility of washing machine interfaces. Therefore, a sample of four washing machines has been selected. After that, using Hierarchical Task Analysis and observation tools the sequence of use has been defined and demanded capabilities have been evaluated. Eventually, by means of the Exclusion Calculator the number of excluded people for the interaction with the machines has been obtained, not only in terms of capacities, but also regarding their age. At this point, the results define the main characteristics to consider when designing accessible washing machines.