PROTECT

Digital inclusion is a primary right for all citizens and represents a “must have” for granting access to knowledge, education, and work. However, four out of ten people in Italy still do not use the Internet regularly and more than half of the population lacks basic digital skills [RI22]. This inequality is often linked to digital barriers. The development of accessible digital services thus becomes essential to guarantee everyone's right to access information and be included in every aspect of society. Inclusion, active participation, dignity, and accessibility are the main objectives of regulatory interventions, the latest being the EU Directive (UE) 2019/882 [EU19] on the accessibility of products and services: from 2025 Member States will be required to grant all citizens, and specifically people with disabilities, full and effective participation in society, providing information access through multiple channels and perceivable and comprehensible modalities. Nevertheless, the Web remains a visual experience, inadequate for many users living with permanent or situational impairments. In these conditions, assistive technologies, e.g., screen readers, can help, but their reading paradigm is not without problems: many websites are hard to interpret as they are still designed regardless of accessibility guidelines, and the information published on the Web is conceived strictly for visual consumption.

Conversational AI is emerging as a technology for inclusive interaction with digital services, offering benefits to several users, from blind and visually impaired users to the elderly and other fragile populations. However, there is still a lack of concrete guidance for designers and developers about how to deliver effective conversational experiences on the Web. The PROTECT project addresses this challenge, by investigating how conversational interfaces can fill the gap in Web access inclusivity. 

The main goal is to define a new paradigm sustaining the notion of Conversational Web Browsing, to enable users to browse the Web through natural-language interaction mediated by a Conversational Agent (CA). One limitation emerging from the literature is that current CAs help search and locate something interesting on the Web, but then they stop after opening a website. 

One limitation emerging from the literature is that current CAs help search and locate something interesting on the Web, but then they stop after opening a website. To overcome this limitation, PROTECT will: i) understand deeply the users’ needs by means of a human-centered process aimed to identify the new paradigm for conversational Web browsing; ii) propose technical solutions for the integration of AI models and Web architectures; iii) investigate factors that can increase users’ trust in the new technologies, through techniques for the transparency and explainability of Conversational AI models.

These goals will be pursued with the support of stakeholders who are Public Administrations, government agencies, and non-profit associations that are interested in the project.