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Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Usable and Accessible Made-to-Measure Learning Materials
Magí Almirall · Muriel Garreta
Learning TechnologiesUniversitat Oberta de Catalunya
EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2006
Harborside Ballroom D, January 11, 11.45
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
The Open University of Catalonia (www.uoc.edu)
was created in 1995
is a completely virtual campus
offers 19 official degrees, several graduate programs and post-graduate
studies, and a doctoral degree,
has more than 35000 students and more than 1500 people including
instructional designers, teachers, tutors, academic and technical staff
the Virtual Campus has up to 3.000 simultaneous logins
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Agenda
Introduction to the project Problem Solution Process
Defining students’needs Designing usable user interfaces Making accessible output formats Developing the automatic transformation engine Results
Results regarding students’ satisfaction Resulting output formats Current and near future work
Q&A
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Introduction > The problem
UOC owns more than 1000 different learning materials
All materials were written specifically for e-learning purposes
Key inconvenience: modifying their interface in order to increase
accessibility and usability was extremely costly and by no means automatic.
Develop a solution to easily publish learning contents in the formats that best fulfill students’ needs at each specific moment of their learning process.
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Introduction > The solution
The separation of the contents’ creation from their final format allows for an agile and cost-effective generation of several output formats to meet students’ needs.
The basis is an XML standard file from which different format outputs are generated automatically.
The output interface is designed using human-computer interaction (HCI) methodologies and following e-learning and accessibility standards.
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Introduction > The process
Steps taken to develop the solution
Define students’ needs
Design usable user interfaces for each format
Make output formats acessible
Develop the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Agenda
Introduction to the project Problem Solution Process
Defining students’ needs Designing usable user interfaces Making output formats accessible Developing the automatic transformation engine Results
Results regarding students’ satisfaction Resulting output formats Current and near future work
Q&A
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Defining students’ needs
Analyze existing UOC information to build personas
Persona: A fictional individual created to describe the typical user based on the user profile
Run a survey, focus groups and personal interviews to find out uses of learning materials
Define output formats
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
The “Functional” The “Visionary” The “Insatiable”
Some characteristics:- young- practical - educated- curious- etc.
Some frustrations: gets sick when studying
during the commute tired at night from work and
family, gets sleepy reading course materials
hard to find quick answers or information to end homework
Some characteristics:- older - needs social approval- patient- curious and reflexive- etc.
Some frustrations: difficult to stay up to date
with the current tools there’s too much information
generated hard to locate information to
share with colleague
Some characteristics:- ever curious- introvert- collaborative- d- etc.
Some frustrations: course materials are too
big and heavy to carry with them
hard to identify and relate all content
printing information results in a waste of time and paper
Defining students’ needs
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Defining students’ needs
Results of the survey, focus groups and personal interviews
All students behave in similar ways towards the learning materials
All students use all output formats
The choice of the format is task and context-sensitive
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Agenda
Introduction to the project Problem Solution Process
Defining students’needs Designing usable user interfaces Making output formats accessible Developing the automatic transformation engine Results
Results regarding students’ satisfaction Resulting output formats Current and near future work
Q&A
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Designing usable user interfaces
Iterative design through user testing 10 users per iteration and format Task-oriented test and short questionnaire
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Designing usable user interfaces
HTML format: Evaluation of the framework
Old format New format
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Designing usable user interfaces
HTML format: Evaluaton of the information layout
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Agenda
Introduction to the project Problem Solution Process
Defining students’needs Designing usable user interfaces Making output formats accessible Developing the automatic transformation engine Results
Results regarding students’ satisfaction Resulting output formats Current and near future work
Q&A
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Content format for people with visual disabilities: Digital Talking Book
DAISY FORMAT ( www.daisy.org)
XML + MP3
Making output formats accessible
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Guides in Web format
Guides:
Section 508 ( www.section508.gov)
WAI AA ( www.w3c.org/WAI)
Automatic accessibility test:
Bobby (www.cast.org)
Making output formats accessible
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Agenda
Introduction to the project Problem Solution Process
Defining students’needs Designing usable user interfaces Making output formats accessible Developing the automatic transformation engine Results
Results regarding students’ satisfaction Resulting output formats Current and near future work
Q&A
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
WRITING XML
XML BASE
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Engine
HTML PDF DAISY DVD
EngineEngine Engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Write XML
The author writes on a Word document
Editor rewrites in XML manually
Next year, automatic filters based in Word styles
Write in XML is similar than write in HTML
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Base XML
Extended Markup Language
Logical, no physical language
“XML Schema” define the possibilities
Developing the automatic transformation engine
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?><!DOCTYPE modul SYSTEM "assignatura.dtd">
<modul>
<title>Motivación y satisfacción</title> <code>90_862a</code> <autor type="m"> <name>Manuel Jordi López Mercadé</name> </autor>
<introduccio> <title>Introducción</title>
<p>Determinadas aportaciones de las personas, quizás las más importantes, no se compran con dinero. Sin duda, en la empresa y en sus equipos de trabajo la sola retribución económica no explica determinados logros y resultados.</p>
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Generate web version: Transform with Extensible Style sheet Language (XSL)
Step 1: XML to SCORMCreate manifest SCORMCreate html content
Step 2: SCORM client and interface Create menuCreate packageNew line to write SCORM marks automatically
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Automatic transformation : Web version
Manifest + htmlXML XSL 2XSL 1
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
PDF version
Transform with FO (Formatting Objects) (http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/)
Step 1: XML to FOSpecial filter for your presentation
Step 2: FO to PDF Standard and freeware software
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Automatic transformation : PDF version
Formatting Objects
XML
FO Processor
XSL 1
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Transform to standard DAISY (http://www.daisy.org)
Step 1: XML to reading XML
XML parts to read no logical information
Step 2: Reading XML to MP3
Use external program ( www.loquendo.com)
Step 3: Create DAISY standard files
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Digital Talking Book
XML Loquendo
xml,xml,xml ... DAISYMP3xml,xml,xml ...
Developing the automatic transformation engine
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Agenda
Introduction to the project Problem Solution Process
Defining students’needs Designing usable user interfaces Making output formats accessible Developing the automatic transformation engine Results
Results regarding students’ satisfaction Resulting output formats Current and near future work
Q&A
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
The materials in the PDF and Web formats were used by more than 25000 students from September 2004 to July 2005.
This experience was done with a 1000 learning materials from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).
This adaptation of the output format to meet students’ needs resulted in an increase of their satisfaction.
Results > Students’ satisfaction
General satisfaction of web materials? UP 11 points (63 to 74)
Web materials helps you to understand the skills? UP 5 points (69 to 75)
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Results > Resulting output formats
Web version in HTML
PDF A4
MP3, DAISY
DVD
Pocket size, “Vull saber”
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
User studies are a good way to prioritize developments
Usability testing is the guide to design the UI
XML allows for the creation of quality edited books
The flexibility of XML and the accessibility orientation opened the door to
unexpected formats
We can apply this development process and perspective to other projects > Open Source LMS
Results > Lessons Learned
Designing a Virtual Campus for the UserUOC’s Usability Program
Thank you!
Questions and Answers
Magí Almirall [email protected] Garreta [email protected]