To provide web services adapted to the users' functional capabilities, diversity must be considered from the conceptualization and design phases of the services' development. In previous work, we proposed a model that allows the provisioning of adapted interfaces based on users' identity and their functional attributes to facilitate this task for software designers and developers. However, these identities and attributes are self-declared by the users, which may impact reliability and usability. In this work, we propose an extension of our model to resolve these deficiencies by delegating the identity and attributes' provision to external certified entities. The European electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services (eIDAS) regulation established a solution to ensure the cross-border mutual recognition of Electronic Identification (eID) mechanisms among the European Member States. This research aims to provide an extension of this regulation mentioned above (eIDAS) to support functional attributes and connect our previously proposed model to this extended eIDAS network. Thanks to this proposal, web services can guarantee adapted and personalized interfaces while improving the functionalities offered without any previous configuration by users and, in a reliable way, since the functional attributes belong to the users' official eID. As the attribute set provided by eIDAS nodes only contains citizens' personal and legal ones, we also propose a mechanism to connect the eIDAS network to external attribute providers that could extend the eIDAS profile of users with their functional attributes. We deployed a pilot to validate the proposed model consisting of an identity provider, an eIDAS node supporting the extended reference code, and an attribute provider supporting functional attributes. We also designed and implemented a simple service that supports eID authentication and serves adapted interfaces based on the retrieved extended eIDAS profile. Finally, we developed an experience for getting feedback from a set of real users with different functional capabilities. According to the results, we concluded that the generalized adoption of the proposed solution in the European digital web services will significantly improve their accessibility in terms of ease of use and adaptability to users' capacities.

Cities are rapidly developing into so-called Smart Cities, where the Internet of Things (IoT) and the hyperconnectivity of citizens are shaping new paradigms of coexistence, so further research is needed on how to improve the user experience through design. One of the revolutions in recent years in the typographic framework are variable fonts, which have the potential of turning typography into something alive that reacts to the environment. In response to this context, we present a model that lays the foundations for improving the process of signification of graphic interfaces through variable fonts, establishing a relationship between typography and the data collected by different sensors, resulting in more satisfactory user experiences. The research is contextualised by a literature review focused on semiotics, graphic design systems, interaction design, graphic and natural interfaces and variable fonts. Then, it describes the elements and the architecture flow of the model and advanced model cases. Finally, the model is evaluated by developing some prototypes. As an outcome of the early approaches to model evaluation, we can confirm that the proposed model has enough level of abstraction and flexibility to be successfully applied to multiple interactive projects in fields such as IoT, games, data visualization, branding or motion graphics.

Nowadays, the use of authoring tools has become the most popular way in which teachers create learning resources. These tools commonly facilitate the creation of educational content by combining text, self-assessed activities, and multimedia resources, often allowing authors to export the result in a standard format. Although there are many tools available, it is difficult to find a tool that meets the needs of all users. In order to fulfill the requirements of specific learning scenarios, one possible solution is to adapt an existing e-Learning authoring tool. However, to do so in an easy way, authoring tools should be built on the principles of modular architecture to facilitate and encourage developers to contribute, which is often not the case. This article presents Ediphy, a modular and extensible open-source web authoring tool for the creation of interactive educational content. Its modular nature, based on plugins, makes it easy to extend the tool with new functionalities to meet the requirements of specific educational settings. In order to evaluate Ediphy, two surveys have been conducted: one among end users who have used Ediphy to create learning resources and another one among developers who have contributed to its improvement. Results show that end users have a great opinion of Ediphy and developers find it easy to contribute.

The European electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services (eIDAS) regulation makes available a solution to ensure the cross-border mutual recognition of electronic IDentification (eID) mechanisms among Member States. However, the basic set of attributes currently provided by each country only contains citizens’ personal and legal attributes, preventing e-services to take full advantage of citizens’ domain-specific information, such as academic or medical data. In this article, we propose an extension of the eIDAS specification to support academic attributes as part of citizens’ profiles. In addition, we present an architecture to enable the connection of eIDAS nodes to national attribute providers to enrich citizens’ profiles with additional academic attributes. We have deployed the eIDAS extension in the specific case of the Spanish eIDAS infrastructure, and we have connected it to an attribute provider of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). We have also improved a set of institutional services of that university by enabling the connection to eIDAS and enhancing the features offered to students based on their academic profiles retrieved from the eIDAS extended infrastructure. Finally, we have evaluated the resulting services thanks to real students from two different countries, concluding that the widespread adoption of the proposed solution in the academic services of European universities will greatly improve their quality and usability.

Cities are rapidly evolving towards the so-called Smart cities, where the Internet of Things (IoT) and the hyperconnectivity of the citizens are creating new coexistence and interaction paradigms. In this context graphic design will play a crucial role, especially in relation to other disciplines, such as data visualization and interaction design. The experiences with the interfaces become much more meaningful due to the use of variable fonts, whose potential lies in turning typography into something alive, able to adapt to the environment around it. This paper presents a model that lays the foundations for providing variable fonts with a semantic use in graphic interfaces, establishing a relationship between typography and the data collected by different sensors.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) need to be accessible for every single person in the globe. Governments and companies are starting to regulate products and services to ensure digital accessibility as a mandatory requirement. A recent example is the European standard EN 301 549, where the functional accessibility requirements for ICT products and services are defined. Especially on the Web, these standards must be integrated throughout the development processes, where the selected architecture models play an essential role. Starting from a model that is based on the OAuth 2.0 protocol, and that allows the complete delegation of authorization (so that an as a service access control mechanism is provided), this paper propose an identity model for providing inclusive services and applications. The model takes advantage of the users’ profiles and their functional attributes to determine how to serve web interfaces to them in a specific service. Those attributes are entirely flexible, and can be defined linked to users’ functional capabilities, or even a particular skill. We have implemented the proposed model as an extension of an existing open source Identity Manager and tested it with a real use case deployment. We conclude that the proposed solution enables a new identity paradigm that allows service providers to design their interfaces satisfying the diversity requirements in terms of design and development.

Secure Electronic Identification (eID) is one of the key enablers of data protection, privacy and prevention of online fraud. However, to date, the lack of a common legal basis prevented European Member States from recognising and accepting eIDs issued by the other Member States. The electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Service (eIDAS) regulation solves these issues by allowing citizens of any European country to use their national eIDs to securely access public and private e-services provided in other European countries. However, the minimum dataset typically provided by the Member States only contains citizens' personal attributes. Therefore, academic services that aim to facilitate the mobility of students within the European Union cannot exploit the advantages of integrating students' eIDs to the same extent as if they included attributes related to their academic profile as well. In this article, we propose an extension of the eIDAS specification in order to support academic attributes. Thanks to this extension, services can request students' information from the eIDAS nodes: not only their personal profiles but also additional attributes related to their academic profile. In this work, we also propose an architecture that allows the connection of the national eIDAS nodes to academic attribute providers in order to enrich the student minimum dataset with their academic attributes. We conclude that thanks to the extension of the eID profile of students with academic attributes, e-services in higher education sectors will be able to fully benefit from the integration of the eIDAS initiative, breaking barriers and favouring students' mobility within the European Union.

Society has changed significantly in the last few years. Technology has evolved rapidly, and new devices and tools are transforming the way we communicate. One of the most important milestones of this transformation was the democratization of the Internet and specifically the Web, a key factor for determining people's connectivity. However, not every people have the same conditions to access web resources and most of the available services and applications in the Internet are not ready for being used in an inclusive manner. This paper presents an accessibility review for web-based learning tools and materials. We establish the difference between reactive and proactive methods for designing web applications, considering the former as a response once the application is ready and the latter as the inclusion of accessibility requirements from the design phase. After the analysis, we conclude that nowadays the most common accessibility approaches for designing web-based learning tools are those whose methodological basis are grounded in reactive principles. It is necessary to move forward and propose solutions that contemplate inclusive design from the early stages of development.

E-learning authoring tools play a crucial role in the development of learning content facilitating the creation of digital learning resources. However, these tools are frequently independent pieces of software which do not encourage users to share their resources and create a community of educators and learners. By including authoring tools as part of collaborative Virtual Learning Environments, content creators can easily publish their resources for other users to enjoy and contribute. This paper presents a new extensible e-Learning authoring tool called Ediphy that has been included as a part of ViSH, a social and collaborative e-Learning platform focused on the creation and sharing of open educational resources. The details of the integration of Ediphy into ViSH are explained in this paper, along with the complete set of benefits that this authoring tool provides to the e-Learning platform. A survey was conducted in order to collect ViSH users' opinions on Ediphy. The results of this survey show that users had a very good perception of Ediphy and believed it signifies a substantial improvement of the ViSH platform.

Access Control is crucial for security management, but in the context of the Internet of Things it cannot be implemented the same way as traditional systems do. Indeed, devices that make the Internet of Things impose some constraints that encourage the design of new access control mechanisms, which should provide flexibility of configuration, as well as support several authorization scopes at the same time, yet being computationally light, dynamic and scalable in order to be ready for the forthcoming Cloud Computing paradigm. In this paper we propose an authorization model that is based on the OAuth 2.0 protocol. From the point of view of the identity provider, this model allows managing roles and permissions for an application-scoped authorization, to enable more flexible scenarios in which multiple tenants take part. With regard to devices, the OAuth 2.0 makes authorization extremely light, because all the required information is provided with a token. Considering all this, authorization management is completely delegated to an external system, so that an as-a-service access control mechanism is provided. The proposed model complies with the security, flexibility and performance requirements that are needed in the Internet of Things paradigm.

access control is a key element when guaranteeing the security of online services. However, devices that make the Internet of Things have some special requirements that foster new approaches to access control mechanisms. Their low computing capabilities impose limitations that make traditional paradigms not directly applicable to sensors and actuators. In this paper, we propose a dynamic, scalable, IoT-ready model that is based on the OAuth 2.0 protocol and that allows the complete delegation of authorization, so that an as a service access control mechanism is provided. Multiple tenants are also supported by means of application-scoped authorization policies, whose roles and permissions are fine-grained enough to provide the desired flexibility of configuration. Besides, OAuth 2.0 ensures interoperability with the rest of the Internet, yet preserving the computing constraints of IoT devices, because its tokens provide all the necessary information to perform authorization. The proposed model has been fully implemented in an open-source solution and also deeply validated in the scope of FIWARE, a European project with thousands of users, the goal of which is to provide a framework for developing smart applications and services for the future Internet. We provide the details of the deployed infrastructure and offer the analysis of a sample smart city setup that takes advantage of the model. We conclude that the proposed solution enables a new access control as a service paradigm that satisfies the special requirements of IoT devices in terms of performance, scalability and interoperability.

Citation Marco Pascual, Lourdes (2021). Contribución al desarrollo de modelos de arquitectura software para el diseño de interfaces web de usuario inclusivas. Thesis (Doctoral), E.T.S.I. Telecomunicación (UPM). https://doi.org/10.20868/UPM.thesis.68778.