Usability Testing - An Aphasia Perspective

Abstract

This paper reports the experience of participating in usability testing from the perspective of a person with aphasia. We briefly report adaptations to classic usability testing to enable the participation of people with aphasia. These included the use of short, direct tasks and physical artefacts such as picture cards. Authors of the paper include Ian, a user with aphasia who participated in adapted usability testing and Abi, a speech and language therapist researcher who facilitated sessions. Ian reports that these methods allowed him, as a person with aphasia, to engage with the usability testing process. We argue that such adaptations are essential in order to develop technologies which will be accessible to people with aphasia. This collaborative report provides a case for both how and why these adaptations can be made.

Empowering Expression for Users with Aphasia through Constrained Creativity

“…Research indicates, however, that the language demands implicit in many aspects of technologyuse present barriers for people with aphasia [8,20,32,40]. The testing of social media tools with people with aphasia [39], for example, has shown that they can present a number of barriers [21]. This means that many creativity support tools, such as those described previously, are not available.…”

Comic Spin: A Comic Creation Tool Enabling Self-expression for People with Aphasia

“…Many digital technologies are challenging for people with aphasia [27,37] due to their language demands. Even commonplace tools such as social media platforms can present signiicant barriers [19,36]. The Snapchat social media platform has been explored as a tool to support expression and engagement between users with aphasia [3].…”

“…4.1.2 Voices of People with Aphasia. Descriptions of life with mild to moderate aphasia from YouTube videos [44,45,47] created by people with aphasia and a paper [36] co-authored by a person with aphasia were used to develop empathy with the intended users and to focus the goals and requirements of Comic Spin. Key takeaways included:…”

“…but focusing on what happens when the app is used independently and over a longer period of time. In addition, given previous research about the barriers that social media platforms can present for creative expression by users with aphasia [19,36], this study enabled us to explore whether participants could use Comic Spin to share their created comic strips onto a public forum (Twitter).…”

A banking app for people with brain injuries: Co-designed by a person with aphasia and a speech and language therapist

“…The participation of people with aphasia in the research and design of new technologies has been the focus of some attention. (Wilson et al, 2015;Roper et al, 2018;Kearns et al, 2020). This paper describes a somewhat unusual example of this phenomenon, in which a stroke survivor and his wife worked together with a speech language pathologist (who they met in rehab) to create a mobile app to help people recovering from brain injuries.…”