Project Goal
Create an app that empowers students with a particular disability from London South Bank University to improve their current educational experience.
(We will be exploring dyslexia).
Role: UX Designer
What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that primarily affects the ability to learn to read and speak. It often runs in families and stems from a difficulty in processing the sounds in words.
Community Profiling & User Research
Affects ability to read and spell
Difficulty reading text
Trouble keeping organised
Writing issues makes taking notes difficult and time consuming
Reading issues make it more difficult to understand written instructions
User Profiling
As part of user research, students were interviewed from the computer science course in order to understand their pain points and past experiences of the Moodle VLE (virtual learning environment).
Name: R.Miah
Gender: Male
Age: 23
Living circumstances: Lives with his mother in Peckham
Employment: Works part-time at Weatherspoon's as a chef assistant
Favourite Colour: Green
Hobbies: Video games, playing guitar, swimming, soccer
Learning Disabilities: Dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia; diagnosed at 18
User Condition & History
Mr Miah was diagnosed with Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia; diagnosed at 18. His condition requires the use of overlays when viewing text on devices & computer screens, as well as physical documents.
Mr Miah was already aware of his symptoms before diagnosis, he is confident in communicating his issues to friends and family.
Lecturers who are not accustomed to his learning disabilities have some initial difficulty accepting his shortcomings at university, which affects his moral.
Discovery Phase
(Student Group X)
Students voiced a number of concerns, below are what we aim to address.
How can they become more productive
They would like help organise their day to reduce stress
How can they integrate the Moodle learning platform with other applications with ease
How can they view all course material, assignments, calendar and uploads in a dyslexia-friendly way
User Insights
Following Mr Miah’s suggestions we aim to address:
Writing issues affecting performance Reading difficulties impacts confidence.
Organisational skills to boost work rate Traditional ways of managing time which may lead to falling behind and requires a lot of effort.
Prioritising assignments is a must-have to help reduce stress
User Feedback
Students were quizzed on the current experience of the Moodle VLE, following this they expressed an increase interest in using apps that would incorporate the following features:
Ability to schedule assignments and deadlines
View content using built-in screen overlays that makes text easier to read
Syncs info about student’s individual assignment briefs
Check module guides for reference
View files when needed
Typography
Recommended fonts & Colour Options
Helvetica fonts
Dark text on light backgrounds
Avoid!
Hyphenations, Italics, BIG paragraphs, underlining.
Initial App Flow
New App Flow
High fidelity wireframing
High fidelity wireframing
High fidelity framing
User Interface Design
Ultimately the user interface colour choices were based on user research as it has a higher visual colour contrast to enable easier reading for users with dyslexia.
Make it stand out.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project during my 2nd Year at University and would attempt another project in the near future.
In hindsight, I would have slowed down my process by draughting low and mid-fidelity wireframes to assist my team members with the final user interface to meet more variations of UX laws.
Tools:
InVision, Whimsical, Adobe Illustrator, Google Docs