Contents
Presenters
Matthew Green – Assistant Educational Technologist, LEaD
Victoria Brew-Riverson – Educational Technologist (Digital Accessibility), LEaD
Paper
Our paper looks at how embedding User experience (UX) methodologies within e-learning can improve levels of engagement for students in an online self-study course about digital accessibility. We will discuss how we designed the course using user-centred design methodology and inclusive design best practice in usability testing.
Whilst User Experience (UX) Design and learning design are separate fields, they often seek similar outcomes. For example, both user experience design and learning design seek to ensure that students, in the case of learning design, and users, in the case of user experience design, ‘engage’ with materials. For learning designers, engagement is central to enabling educational outcomes for their students (Reid et al., 2005). For UX designers, engagement is often framed within an attentional framework. In a world where our attention is increasingly competed for, UX designers use research and visual design to ensure that their users’ attention is held (Reid et al., 2016). As educators are increasingly having to compete with other technologies, educators have looked to user centred design to increase engagement in online learning (Lopez-Aguilar, Bustamante-Bello & Navarro-Tuch, 2021; Poma, Rodríguez & Torres, 2021).
In 2023, the Digital Accessibility team ran a digital accessibility maturity exercise (an exercise developed by Ability Net in 2021) across City schools and professional services and identified key gaps in staff knowledge regarding digital accessibility. Recently JISC (a UK-based not-for-profit organisation providing IT services and digital resources in support of further and higher education) provided a foundational digital accessibility course and staff were encouraged to provide feedback on the course before it was rolled out to the entire body of City St George’s staff. Various accessibility and user interface issues were uncovered in this pilot stage, prompting a redesign and rebuild of the module in Moodle. We decided to employ a UX Design process, incorporating user feedback into the course design, in this case, staff members who were the target audience of the course. Miya and Govender (2022) argue that ‘In not giving attention to student satisfaction regarding the software platform for teaching and learning, [this] can be counterproductive to students’ learning experiences.’ By adopting UX methodologies to develop the ‘Digital Accessibility: An Introduction’ Moodle course, user engagement was put at the forefront of the course development. We, for example, elicited critiques from users on the visual design, information architecture, and content of the course through the completion of ‘think aloud’ usability tests. Testing was conducted with a diverse range of staff members (the ‘learners’), including disabled staff members. This was in line with lens 7 of Ability Net’s maturity model (2021) which stipulates that ‘disabled staff and students are actively involved in digital developments…[and] contribute to staff development in accessibility’. We then created a ‘rainbow spreadsheet’ to document the issues identified in the tests and highlight areas to change. Sharon (2013) describes rainbow spreadsheets as a ‘centrepiece for lessons learning from a study’.
In this talk, we will explore the successes and limitations of employing these UX methodologies for educational materials, and the benefits of such an approach for improving engagement. Furthermore, we will build on existing literature by critically examining the idea of treating learners as users, exploring how this may change the power dynamic between lecturers and students.
By the end of the session attendees will be able to:
- Compare the differences between conceptions of students and users
- Identify UX methodologies and how they can apply to e-learning and blended and distance learning in Higher Education
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Open in new tab References
AbilityNet (2021). ‘HE and FE Accessibility Maturity Model’. Available at: HE and FE Accessibility Maturity Model | AbilityNet. Accessed: 02/04/2025
Lopez-Aguilar, A., Bustamante-Bello, R. and Navarro-Tuch, S. A. (2021) ‘Advanced system to measure UX in online learning environments’, in 2021 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). Springer Paris, pp. 774–777.
Miya, T., Govender, I. (2022) ‘UX/UI design of online learning platforms and their impact on learning: A review’, in International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science Volume 11 No. 10 (202) pp. 216-327.
Poma, A., Rodríguez, G. and Torres, P. (2021) ‘User experience evaluation in MOOC platforms: A hybrid approach’, in Human-Computer Interaction: 7th Iberoamerican Workshop (HCI-COLLAB 2021). Springer International Publishing, pp. 208–224.
Reid, J., Cater, K., Fleuriot, C., & Hull, R. (2005). Experience Design Guidelines for Creating Situated Mediascapes. Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. Available at: https://calvium.com/calvium/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Calvium_Research_ExperienceDesignGuidelines.pdf
Reid, J., et al. (2016). “Designing for User Experience and Engagement.” Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303689141_Designing_for_User_Experience_and_Engagement
Sharon, T. (2013) ‘Rainbow Spreadsheet: A Collaborative Tool for UX Research’, Smashing Magazine. Available at: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/04/rainbow-spreadsheet-collaborative-ux-research-tool/?utm_source=chatgpt.com (Accessed: 3 April 2025).
Wijekumar, T.M.M.N. (2024). Implementing Learner Experience Design in University Teaching: An Action Research Study on Enhancing Faculty-Student Engagement and Motivation. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 24(4). Available at: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/35977
