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ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2026-02-10

ABILITY final user studies – part II
On January 13, 2026, the ABILITY team met in Marburg, Germany, for the second round of final user studies. Hosted at Blista, a school for the blind, the team tested hardware/software with nine students and several teachers. Participants were highly enthusiastic, mastering the technology faster than expected. Data is now being analyzed for a final report due in late February.

A blind person is navigating China map on Haptic tablet and Dotpad device.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2026-01-30

Final User Testing in France
The Ability project has recently conducted its final user testing workshops with future users with visual impairments. Following earlier trials in Lithuania and Germany, these sessions held in France made it possible to evaluate various usage scenarios, including understanding geographical maps, following routes, online shopping, and exploring images.

The consortium will now finalize its conclusions for deliverable.

Final User Testing in France The Ability project has recently conducted its final user testing workshops with future users with visual impairments. Following earlier trials in Lithuania and Germany, these sessions held in France made it possible to evaluate various usage scenarios, including understanding geographical maps, following routes, online shopping, and exploring images. User feedback proved essential in identifying the most relevant interaction methods and in confirming the importance of allowing each user to customize their preferences. The tests highlighted the key role of multimodality. Combining haptic feedback, audio output, 3D tactile touch, and artificial intelligence helps address a wide range of needs. While preferences differ from one person to another, the complementarity of these interaction modes was widely appreciated, reinforcing the inclusive approach of the Ability project. The consortium will now finalize its conclusions and submit them to the European Commission next month. Final User Testing in France The Ability project has recently conducted its final user testing workshops with future users with visual impairments. Following earlier trials in Lithuania and Germany, these sessions held in France made it possible to evaluate various usage scenarios, including understanding geographical maps, following routes, online shopping, and exploring images. User feedback proved essential in identifying the most relevant interaction methods and in confirming the importance of allowing each user to customize their preferences. The tests highlighted the key role of multimodality. Combining haptic feedback, audio output, 3D tactile touch, and artificial intelligence helps address a wide range of needs. While preferences differ from one person to another, the complementarity of these interaction modes was widely appreciated, reinforcing the inclusive approach of the Ability project. The consortium will now finalize its conclusions and submit them to the European Commission next month.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2026-01-02

Connect by Ezymob, a community-based application serving autonomy and knowledge sharing

Connect, developed by the French startup Ezymob, is a community-based application designed by and for people with disabilities, particularly visual impairments. Its goal is to strengthen autonomy while fostering social and collaborative connections within local communities.

URL of the solution: ezymob.fr/application-communau

Connect, developed by the French startup Ezymob, is a community-based application designed by and for people with disabilities, particularly visual impairments. Its goal is to strengthen autonomy while fostering social and collaborative connections within local communities. At the heart of its design, Connect brings together a wide range of useful local information within a single interface — adapted sports, accessible events, everyday services, inclusive news, and accessibility landmarks — while allowing users to contribute to and enrich the content. This collective dynamic turns the application into a living space where everyone can share experiences, trusted addresses, and practical advice for the benefit of all. Connect’s community-driven approach goes beyond simple data collection. It is based on a logic of co-creation and the sharing of best practices, drawing on users’ expertise to make each area more accessible and welcoming. By valuing feedback and recommendations from its community, the application encourages collective learning and concrete mutual support among people facing similar everyday challenges. Accessible on smartphones without the need for any specific equipment, Connect embodies an inclusive vision of mobility and local life, where the community becomes an active contributor to accessibility and directly helps improve quality of life for everyone.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-12-15

Getting Ready for the final user studies!

Just before the final user studies in Vilnius, partners from LASS, ULUND, CEA and Siemens met at LASS for a preparation session. As all solution components were together for the first time, final integration, adjustments and a full test run were completed, followed by fine-tuning the study protocol. The session also helped partners prepare for upcoming studies. The final evaluations will take place in Lithuania, Germany and France.

Getting Ready for the final user studies! Just before the final user studies in Vilnius, partners from LASS, ULUND, CEA and Siemens met at LASS for a preparation session. As all solution components were together for the first time, final integration, adjustments and a full test run were completed, followed by fine-tuning the study protocol. The session also helped partners prepare for upcoming studies. The final evaluations will take place in Lithuania, Germany and France.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-12-01

Sight Village London 2025

We had a great time presenting the insideONE+ and insideSUPRA at Sight Village London on 18–19 November 2025. As the UK’s biggest event for blind and low-vision communities, Sight Village is always buzzing with people keen to try out new tech and hands-on tools.

At the PROFESSIONAL VISION SERVICES booth, we introduced visitors to the EU Ability Project and showed how the devices can make everyday digital tasks easier and more accessible.

We had a great time presenting the insideONE+ and insideSUPRA at Sight Village London on 18–19 November 2025. As the UK’s biggest event for blind and low-vision communities, Sight Village is always buzzing with people keen to try out new tech and hands-on tools. At the PROFESSIONAL VISION SERVICES booth, we introduced visitors to the EU Ability Project and showed how the insideONE+ and insideSUPRA can make everyday digital tasks easier and more accessible. Many attendees stopped by to test the devices, ask questions, and share their experiences. The positive reactions and lively conversations reminded us why innovation in accessibility matters. Thanks to everyone who joined us—we’re excited to keep pushing the Ability Project forward!
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-11-14

Mainstream tangible and haptic technology for XR

Ability researchers visited the XR Lab at Ericsson Research, discuss haptic tech for XR (eXtended reality). The setups were:
• bHaptics Tactsuit x40 vest, gloves and arm bands with Meta Quest 3 in demo games for assembling and shooting
• weart TouchDIVER haptic glove G1 with Meta Quest 3 in demo environment with different shapes, surfaces and temperatures
• Nintendo Switch with Nintendo Labo motorcycle setup and game

Person with grey hair and purple striped shirt in full black VR gear: headset, vest, armbands and gloves. The left hand and arm stretched to reach something. The virtual environment on the screen shows the virtual counterpart of the hand and worktops and shelvesPerson with grey hair and purple striped shirt in with VR headset, hand and finger-devices looking like small cubes fastened at the tips of the fingers on thumb, index and middle finger. Screen behind shows virtual hand and spherical objects.Person with short hair and light green t-shirt holding a cardboard device in their lap resembling motorcycle handlebars. A screen is fastened in the middle, showing a race track.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-11-06

October 9, 2025 – Lille, France

At the GPEAA 2025 trade show, our team presented insideONE+ and insideSUPRA, two innovative solutions designed to enhance accessibility for people who are blind or visually impaired.

With insideONE+, highlighting its role in the Ability Project. This tactile and digital Braille tablet combines Braille input with a full Windows interface, offering greater independence and inclusion in education and everyday life.

October 9, 2025 – Lille, France At the GPEAA 2025 trade show, our team presented insideONE+ and insideSUPRA, two innovative solutions designed to enhance accessibility for people who are blind or visually impaired. With insideONE+, highlighting its role in the Ability Project. This tactile and digital Braille tablet combines Braille input with a full Windows interface, offering greater independence and inclusion in education and everyday life. #AbiLITYProject #accessibility
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-10-31

Semi-Automatic Visual Assistant

Great news!

We’re happy to share that our journal paper is now published in IEEE Access and available on:

ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1

We explore a semi-automatic, human-centred AI approach for image conversational descriptions that truly fit their target users: Blind and Visually Impaired people.

A promising step toward the vision of "Symbiotic Intelligence" — where humans and AI learn from each other and co-adapt for the benefit of all.

Great news! We’re happy to share that our journal paper is now published in IEEE Access and available on IEEE Xplore: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11146787 In this work, we explore a semi-automatic, human-centred AI approach for image conversational descriptions that truly fit their target users: Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) people. Here is the idea in a nutshell: LLMs generate initial image-conversation drafts → BVI experts refine what matters most → the AI learns from those refinements to produce better, more relevant conversations → BVI end-users validate the gains in usefulness and satisfaction. It is a practical recipe for AI that adapts to people, not the other way around—scaling inclusive, BVI-centred training data and improving real accessibility outcomes. One more promising step toward the vision of "Symbiotic Intelligence" — where humans and AI learn from each other and co-adapt for the benefit of all.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-10-22

New EU Accessibility Rules: What You Need to Know

European Accessibility Act (EAA) will start applying across all EU Member States — marking a big step toward a more inclusive digital Europe from June 28 2025

The EAA extends accessibility requirements extends to websites, mobile apps, and digital contents offered in the EU must be accessible to all.

Accessibility is now a legal obligation, not just good practice.

Non-compliance can lead to penalties and reputational risks.

European Accessibility Act (EAA) 2025
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-10-10

Sharing Insights on Accessibility: ABILITY at the European Blind Union Podcast

We are delighted to share that a member of the ABILITY project team recently took part in the European Blind Union’s podcast “EBU in Action”.

At ABILITY, we believe that the design of new assistive technologies must be guided by the real experiences, needs, and aspirations of blind and partially sighted people.

You can listen to the episode here:
ebuinaction.podbean.com/e/epis

EBU in action
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-09-26

AAATE Conference Participation

The ABILITY consortium (ULUND, OFFIS, CEA) joined AAATE 2025 in Cyprus. ULUND showcased an audio-tactile tablet enhancing tactile graphics with sound. OFFIS presented AI tools to describe key image elements for education, outputting via pin display. CEA shared haptic bar charts using vibrations. The event highlighting accessibility tech, policies, and the Nicosia Declaration on integrating accessibility in higher education curricula.

Dr. Saeed presenting ULUND's workDr. Salous presenting OFFIS' workDr. Panëels presenting CEA's work
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-08-14

Tactile Graphics Workshop, Vilnius – June

A workshop where blind and partially sighted participants tested tactile materials from Lund University. Maps of Lithuania, Ukraine, Israel–Palestine, and others showed how thoughtful design sparks curiosity, learning, and vivid mental images. Engagement fell with unfamiliar topics, underscoring the role of prior knowledge. The event highlighted the vast potential of accessible, affordable tactile graphics to open the world by touch.

• A map of Lithuania and its neighbouring countries• A map of Ukraine highlighting occupied territories,
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-08-01

ABILITY AI Predictive Writing

As part of the ABILITY project, we built a local AI-based predictive writing app for blind users. The Windows app is NVDA-compliant, mouse-free, and supports English, French, and Lithuanian. Features include word prediction, auto-completion, spelling correction, sentence generation, emoji search, and Braille/native language output. By ranking suggestions from context and frequent use, improve speed and accuracy in digital writing.

Screenshot of ABILITY Predictive writing demo app
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-07-02

ABILITY@LETI Innovation Days

June 17–19 2025

We showcased the ABILITY tablet and CEA-LETI's “Piezo-in-Flex” piezoelectric patches at the CEA-LETI Innovation Days. Visitors from the microelectronics sector gave great feedback on the haptic features and multimodal interface. We had promising discussions and made valuable contacts for potential collaborations, such as integrating haptics into cleanroom microelectronics equipment.


We showcased the ABILITY tablet and CEA-LETI's “Piezo-in-Flex” piezoelectric patches at the CEA-LETI Innovation Days. Visitors from the microelectronics sector gave great feedback on the haptic features and multimodal interface. We had promising discussions and made valuable contacts for potential collaborations, such as integrating haptics into cleanroom microelectronics equipment.We showcased the ABILITY tablet and CEA-LETI's “Piezo-in-Flex” piezoelectric patches at the CEA-LETI Innovation Days. Visitors from the microelectronics sector gave great feedback on the haptic features and multimodal interface. We had promising discussions and made valuable contacts for potential collaborations, such as integrating haptics into cleanroom microelectronics equipment.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-06-17

13 June 2025

At CEA’s List Days, we welcomed 500 industrials to share our innovations and foster collaboration. We showcased the ABILITY project and haptic tablet, sparking great discussions on touchscreen accessibility, such as ATMs and payment terminals.

The tablet is now at Leti Days in Grenoble with the team behind its tactile actuator patch. We're also designing interactive use cases like a mathematical bar chart—volunteers welcome for testing!


The tablet has now travelled to Grenoble to the ongoing Leti days (another research institute of CEA), to the colleagues who worked on creating the thin patch of actuators attached to the screen to enable the localized and multitouch vibrations.Colleague is explaining the thin patch of actuators attached to the screen to enable the localized and multitouch vibrations to visitors.Colleague is explaining the thin patch of actuators attached to the screen to enable the localized and multitouch vibrations to visitors.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-06-11

ABILITY @Tactile Reading Conference

5 June 2025

Last week, the ABILITY consortium attended the Tactile Reading Conference 2025 in Amsterdam. We showcased a demo of the haptic tablet and gave a talk on our user-centered design approach. There was strong interest in the tablet display tactile graphics.

We also visited a visually impaired children school in Grave, really impressed by their creative teaching strategies. Many thanks to the school and students.


Sabrina from CEA standing next to the high demo table with the haptic tablet on it and with behind a tall whiteboard with the ABILITY name written on it by hand, as well as "haptic tablet". More details: https://www.ability-project.eu/news/ability-%40tactile-reading-conference-2025Taqua, a researcher at ULUND presenting the lo-fi prototyping techniques for the ABILITY tablet(s).
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-05-27

ABILITY @Sight City 2025

27 May 2025
Members from the consortium, and in particular Siemens, OFFIS and CEA, presented various demos at Sight City 2025 in Frankfurt for 3 days. We presented the localized tactile feedback on a 10.5 inch tablet and a demo of the exploration of tactile graphics attached to a tactile device to integrate touch interactions triggering speech on demand (for the future 2D pin display).

link: ability-project.eu/news/abilit


Team doing the demo of the tablet There are 5 people on the picture, 4 standing up from the ABILITY consortium around a table and a user sitting and exploring the tactile tablet on the table. The tablet displays a bar chart with different effects on the elements. From the consortium, there are representatives from CEA and Siemens, and OFFIS behind the camera. Interactive tactile graphics demo The booth has also other demos besides the tablet. In this picture, a person is testing the work on the interactions with tactile graphics, attached to a tablet for touch detection and speech interaction upon touch. This work explores the display and interactions for the future 2D pin display. User exploring the tactile bar chart Zoom on the hands of a visually impaired user exploring the bar chart with his two hands. There is feedback on the axes, a different one at the origin, another at the intersection between the bars and the axis and finally one indicating the end of the bar.
ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-04-15

Ability and ULUND on IKEA Sweden’s Internal Accessibility Day:

ability-project.eu/post/abilit

ABILITY EU Projectability_eu
2025-01-28

🌟 Call for Papers: Designing Non-Visual Interactions with Haptic and Multimodal Interactive Displays 🌟

We are thrilled to announce a call for papers for our upcoming Special Thematic Session (STS) at the AAATE 2025 Conference!
📅 Submission deadline: 10 February 2025

Read more on this topic in our dedicated blog-post: ability-project.eu/
Ability-project: ability-project.eu/

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