Internet of Things (IoT) and Special Needs Users

Internet of Things and Special Needs Users
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Internet of Things and Special Needs Users
Part A
The position taken by the paper is that existing conventional methods of requirements gathering for application development when the users are people with special needs can be complemented through Internet of Things (IoT). This will help to address the weaknesses inherent in the traditional methods. The conventional methods of requirements gathering entail the use of questionnaires, workshops, interviews, as well as scenario-based approaches in theatrical setting (Ferati et al., 2016).
Some of the primary arguments that Ferati et al. (2016) are making include the fact that the conventional methods of requirements gathering are not able to grasp the full context when they are used to collect data from the communities of individuals with special needs, largely due to the difficulty of accessing the respondents as well as incompleteness of the data collected. The traditional methods necessitate direct communication and access to the respondents, and using these methods with disable users is usually limited and troublesome since the disabled users are dispersed and gaining access to them for a longer time period is not easy. These limitations bring about a challenge of inadequate data to comprehend the requirements and needs of the individuals with special needs (Ferati et al., 2016).
According to the authors, these issues could be effectively mitigated by complementing the conventional methods of requirements gathering through IoT. The reason they give to back up these claims is that the large quantity of data that is collected from different devices interlinked could be helpful in generating meaningful data which would complement the inadequate quantity of data gathered with the use of conventional approaches (Ferati et al., 2016).
I agree with the position that the authors take in the paper since IoT devices like web technologies, wearables, smart phones and sensors indeed capture a significant amount of data with regard to the user everyday activities and user context which could be utilized in the requirements gathering process. Using IoT technology to augment traditional approaches of requirements gathering offers a really good source for enriched depiction of the users with special needs. It also enhances the comprehensiveness and completeness of the data collected. As a result, the needs of users with special needs would be understood better leading towards increased usability of the artefacts (Jenkins, 2015). Even so, the paper has some flaws and there are areas that could be improved. In particular, it could be improved by showing how the privacy and security of the users with special needs could be respected with the collection of data through IoT technology (Perera et al., 2015).
Part B
This section of the assignment puts forward a new way wherein Internet of Things devices could help a group of users with special needs.
The group of special needs users that I intend to target is people with visual impairment, including those who are part...