ABSTRACT
The project Multimodal Collaboration Environment for Inclusion of Visually Impaired Children (MICOLE) was a European project aimed at developing a system that could support collaboration between visually impaired children and sighted children within a learning context. In the MICOLE system the multimodal interaction technology was applied based on the needs and abilities of visually impaired children. During the project several prototypes were created, tested, which aimed to improve the collaboration between visually impaired and sighted people. Force feedback through the Phantom device was also used as a guiding medium and an ordinary computer mouse was used in the Solar system and Electric circuit applications to take the visually impaired person to a certain place in the virtual world. Some usability problems were, however, recognized in Solar System when guiding with the mouse: the speed, the force of the Phantom stylus were too strong when it moved to the target, which surprised the visually impaired children and could make him/her scared.
