The Design of an Authoring Interface to Make eLearning Content Accessible

Abstract

This paper presents the rationale and design process of an authoring interface that enables didactic experts to create or modify eLearning content to make it accessible by learners with special needs. The tool has been designed according to a methodological framework and a set of guidelines for eLearning accessibility previously developed by our group. A key aspect of our framework consists in helping authors to preserve the didactic quality of the eLearning experiences provided to disabled learners (in particular, visually impaired ones) beyond assuring their mere physical access to online materials. A usercentred design process has been adopted to develop a usable prototype of the authoring interface, named aLearning, that we describe below.

Scaffolding the design of accessible eLearning content: a user-centered approach and cognitive perspective

“…A sensible solution may be to provide didactical experts with online digital assistance when they are creating new Learning Objects, especially in the case where the Learning Objects are addressed to learners with special needs. We have recently conducted prototyping activities of an authoring tool of this kind for didactical experts (Gabrielli et al 2005). The tool could also be useful for the authors who decide to retrieve materials not originally created for users with special needs.…”