Introducing the Cloud4all/GPII Architecture presentation by Antranig Basman & Colin Clark at ICCHP - International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs in Linz, Austria.

1. Introducing the Cloud4all/GPII
Architecture
Colin Clark Antranig Basman
Lead Software Architect, Core Framework Architect
Inclusive Design Research Centre Fluid Project
Monday, 9 July, 12

2. What is accessibility?
Monday, 9 July, 12

3. Rethinking Disability
Monday, 9 July, 12

4. Rethinking Disability
A mismatch between the
user
and the
user interface
Monday, 9 July, 12

5. Disability is contextual
Monday, 9 July, 12

6. Designing for Context
Monday, 9 July, 12

7. Disability is environmental
Monday, 9 July, 12

8. Accessibility is...
the ability of the system
to accommodate the needs of the user
Monday, 9 July, 12

9. Make yourself at home...
Monday, 9 July, 12

10. Today’s Challenges
The Internet is no longer optional, but many can’t use it.
Computers are everywhere, but accessibility isn’t.
The assistive technology market is struggling.
We are in a new era of cross platform diversity.
Monday, 9 July, 12

11. Monday, 9 July, 12

12. User Experience
• User interfaces that can adapt to the needs,
preferences, tastes of users—feel at home
• Content that can be delivered in a form that
people can understand and use
... across all the platforms we use.
Monday, 9 July, 12

13. Technical Goals
• Lower the cost of building accessibly:
Developers can draw from a diverse range
of easy to find adaptive building blocks
• Build user personalization into the fabric of
the web, mobile, and desktop
• Sustain an infrastructure for personalization
and interoperability for the long run
Monday, 9 July, 12

14. Technical Challenges
• How do we support all these platforms?
• How do we respond to the increased
hybridization across web and desktop?
• How do we scale it big?
• How do we make it extensible and able to
grow sustainably over time?
Monday, 9 July, 12

15. Approach
1. Design an overall architecture
2. Build a viable, solid reference implementation
Monday, 9 July, 12

16. Big Project, Little Steps
• Focus on early, valuable use cases first:
Linux,Windows, and media on the web
• Do everything in the open
• Get it working and iterate, adding more
features, more platforms, more use cases
Monday, 9 July, 12

17. Architectural Features
• Declarative
• Relocatable
• Ontology agnostic
• Extremely loosely coupled and extensible
Monday, 9 July, 12

18. Technologies
• Use the web!
• REST instead of platform-specific remoting
APIs
• JSON payloads: simple, ubiquitous data
interchange
• HTML, CSS, JavaScript for user interfaces
• Idiomatic platform integration
Monday, 9 July, 12

19. Reference Implementation
• Node.js for cross-platform development
• Core code written in JavaScript
• Native bindings to platform in C and libffi
• CouchDB document-oriented database
• Highly scalable cloud deployment model
Monday, 9 July, 12

20. Visualizing The Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

21. Monday, 9 July, 12

22. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

23. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

24. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

25. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

26. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

27. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

28. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

29. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

30. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

31. GPII Architecture
Monday, 9 July, 12

32. Preferences and
Preferences Server
Accessible via:
• Preferences editor interface
• Web-based preferences server
• Other GPII components (Flow
Manager)
a framework for preferences editing
Monday, 9 July, 12

33. Preferences Framework
Preferences App Preferences App Preferences App
Configuration Configuration Configuration
Presentation
Preferences
Framework
Persistence Action
Resusable Preferences Objects
Preferences Wizard Game Preferences Editor Immediate, inline Editor
Monday, 9 July, 12

34. Preferences Server
Easy for developers to use
• RESTful API
• JSON-based payloads
• OAuth for delegating access
Scalable and forward-looking
• Document-based persistence
• High-concurrency server
Monday, 9 July, 12

35. Source Code
Github Project https://github.com/GPII/
Issue Tracker http://issues.gpii.net
Example code and configuration:
• Preferences statement: http://bit.ly/LN4iEB
• Settings Handler: http://bit.ly/M6mDfD
• Solutions Registry: http://bit.ly/KrLo6Z
Monday, 9 July, 12

36. How you can get involved
1. Feedback, ideas suggestions: tell us
what works and what doesn’t
2. Testing and bug fixing
3. Code with us: an open meritocracy
4. User experience design
Monday, 9 July, 12

37. Questions?
Colin Clark
e: cclark@ocad.ca
t: @colinbdclark
Antranig Basman
e: amb26@ponder.org.uk
fluidproject.org
gpii.net
Monday, 9 July, 12