DAISY - Universally Designed?

Use and Usefulness of DAISY in Norwegian Primary and Secondary Education

Miriam Eileen Stenberg Nes - Avenir AS

Kirsten Ribu - University College of Oslo

Presentation Outline

DAISY within Norwegian Education

Is DAISY Universally Designed (UD)?Measuring UD: Feature Analysis

Perspectives on the possibilities of UDImprovement recommendations

DAISY in Norwegian Education(1/2) Print disabled students in almost every

Norwegian classroom DAISY used as the reading aid system

Reading formats that can be used by every student is the key to equal opportunities

Survey on DAISY use/usefulness Spring06 to 600 schools - ordered DAISY books for the school year 05/06

DAISY in Norwegian Education(2/2)

2 questionnaires: Teachers and Students

Typical use:

Students 12-16 years, with dyslexia or similar print disabilities, use DAISY several times a week, in social/language subjects, for homework, at home, unsupervised, with minimal guidance, using a free playback software and a DAISY audio book, listening to and adjusting the narrator while navigating through pages and chapters.

Is DAISY UD? (1/4)

A. What is “DAISY”?1. Functionality of 3-component system

2. Playback Software (SW)

B. What is “UD” in SW/Systems?1. Users: User groups (to include) - Their needs

2. Functionality: (focus on) Core

Is DAISY UD? (2/4)

C. What does it mean for DAISY to be UD?1. Useful for all current users2. Believed to be useful for other user groups

D. Measuring UD: Feature Analysis1. Define User groups and their requirements2. Relate req. to features in SW/System3. Define importance of features4. Define acceptable implementation (may rate)

What does useful mean for this user group?

Is DAISY UD? (3/4)

1. Feature Analysis Survey Assessment:• Set of items in the questionnaires• Cross off Features used: Importance• Rank for Ease-of-use and Helpfulness: Points• System usefulness: Percentage of possible score

• Below 50% - No!; 50-75% - Partly; Above 75% - Yes!

• Result: 73% of possible score

Is DAISY UD? (4/4)

2. Feature Analysis Expert Evaluation:• The dyslectic user group requirements

• Focus group interviews (serious dyslectic adult)• Usability testing - observation/interview (students)

• Dyslexia - Learning - DAISY SW - Aims/values

Comparing how the SW fit dyslectic students• Result: None, really! Tie between:

EasyReader 2.30 (121) & Amis 2.5 (86)Victor Reader Soft 1.5 not suited (82)

Possibilities of UD (1/10)

DAISY is overall useful

DAISY is used within the educational system in Norway in a very consistent manner Strengthens our usefulness claims

Useful, because students: Learn More - More Easily - More Efficiently First 2 findings: Correlate with previous studies Third: General student group aim!

Possibilities of UD (2/10)Improvement recommendations

More Efficient Main goal behind non-disabled students’ wish to

use DAISY! Make DAISY more efficient than printed books!

Reason for not being MORE useful: 1. Gap between Intended and Actual Users2. Gap between Intended and Used Functionality

Possibilities of UD (3/10)Improvement recommendations

DAISY is primarily used by dyslectic students

Playback software mainly developed for the visually impaired, and needs more focus on suitability for visual users. Interface Design: Presentation and Interaction Functionality: 6 core (basic) features identified

Possibilities of UD (4/10)SW Interface recommendations

GUI needs improvement regarding Learnability : “The ease of which new users can efficiently interact” Expert evaluation + Student tests

Too Complex - Keep in mind, developed for: 1) Children, 2) Dyslectic

Possibilities of UD (5/10)SW Interface recommendations Free Playback SW score higher on visual UI,

but have serious stability issues.

Feature Set

(Level of importance)

TPBR Amis EaseR VRS

User Interface (1) ? :D :(( :((

Installation (2) ? :(( :D :D

Help Service (3) None

?:(( :D :((

Vital Issue: Instable Instable

UI - Scroll Problem

GUI (all)

Possibilities of UD (6/10)Functionality recommendations

Less than 50% of features used. No additional features wanted! Too many features?

No systematic (virtually no) user training Train Users vs Redesign GUI

Lots of features, but few contribute to the usefulness score of DAISY in feature analyses

Possibilities of UD (7/10)Functionality recommendations

Developed with Audio and Navigation in mind Still the core of DAISY usefulness. Navigation: praised, Auditive: base functionality

Production trade-off: full text VS natural speech DAISY audio most common, but full text popular With the growth of a visual user group, full text

could be regarded as a new base feature set.

Possibilities of UD (8/10)Functionality recommendations

6 core features identified for dyslectic users: Scrolling (as navigational tool) Jumping to a specific page Jumping to/between chapter Using full text (on screen) Listening to natural speech Listening to synthetic speech.

These make DAISY useful in analyses, and/or heavily supported by qualitative data

Possibilities of UD (9/10)Functionality recommendations

TPBR Amis EaseR VictorRS

Auditive (1) ? :D :D :D

Navigational (1) ?Hard to use

:D :DHard to find

:((

Full Text (2) ? :(( :D :D

Other (4) ?Bookmarks: Not useful

:(( :D :((

• Vertical: Features sets (Level of Importance)

Possibilities of UD (10/10)Reversed Universal Design

DAISY Started as successful reading aid system for blind (visually impaired)

Evolving to potentially universal reading aid system

Reversed Universal Design: Incremental strategy: Stepwise refinement until all user groups included

Proposition: Focus on current users Visual user groups should be included

Conclusion

DAISY helps dyslectic students, but:

Focus on interface design, not only features

Focus on Core functionality Make this useful before adding more features

Include visual user group requirements

Thank you!

Questions?