PERSONAS OF THE UOC’S VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS Persona 1: Carles, a screen magnifier user. Carles is 35 years old. Married with a son, he sells ONCE (Spain’s national organisation for the blind) lottery products for a living. He began studying psychology two years ago, as it is an area he has always liked. At secondary school he was torn between psychology and audiovisual communication. He eventually opted for the latter, but had to give it up when he started losing his sight. Several years later, he decided he wanted to begin studying again. He has friends on courses at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC) and they spoke very highly of the institution, particularly its continuous assessment policy. He takes two or three subjects every semester and would like to be able to practise professionally as a psychologist when he graduates. He tries to devote a few hours to the UOC every day. His computer is equipped with a screen magnifier that enlarges everything it displays, thus enabling him to browse the internet and use the Virtual Campus. Additionally, his screen colours are inverted (i.e. white text on a black background) as he has mild photophobia. When working with subject content, he alternates between the PDF files (which he uses his magnifier to read) and the DAISY audio files posted in classrooms. On one hand, he does so because he finds sitting in front of the computer reading for a long time without a break very tiring, and the audio files allow him to make headway with the content. On the other hand, the audio files also enable him to take advantage of the time he spends travelling to work, quiet spells once he is there (he does not have access to a computer in his job) and even the time he spends preparing his meals to listen to new content or review older material. Sometimes, however, he has problems with the accessibility of subject content. For example, the quality of some of the PDF files’ images (illustrations of the anatomy of the brain, for instance) is very poor, meaning that he struggles to make them out even when enlarged and has to ask his wife to describe them to him. He has also found a number of PDF files to be inaccessible, with a fuzzy appearance even when enlarged. He has consequently had to convert them to Word format himself, but that has proved very time-consuming as he has encountered page layout problems and had to alter headers, on top of which the images are lost in the process. Sometimes, furthermore, it has also been the case that the corresponding audio files have not been available in classrooms, leaving him no option but to read the content via his screen, despite him being unable to spend as much time doing that as he would like. On more than one occasion he has found himself with insufficient time to carry out a Continuous Assessment Test (CAT) due to the demands of converting a PDF file to a Word document and the fact that he cannot spend long spells reading from his computer screen.

Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students Pablo Rebaque-Rivas

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Carles’s experience at the UOC could be improved by:

♦ Making subject content accessible, particularly PDF files and images. ♦ Avoiding the use of scanned material in PDF files. ♦ Improving image quality (e.g. greater size, sharper definition, images in colour,

etc.). ♦ Making content available in various formats (e.g. PDF, Word, audio). ♦ Organising training and awareness-raising sessions on accessibility issues and

inclusive design for those responsible for preparing subject content. Persona 2: Anna, a screen reader user. Anna is 25 years old and lives with her parents. She is a part-time receptionist in a local authority building in Terrassa. She has begun studying humanities this year, as she has always had a liking for art, literature, etc. While she is currently studying as a hobby, she does not rule out taking up a career in the field after graduating. She chose the UOC because of the lack of travel involved; she felt that going to university by train from her home in Terrassa every day would have been very complicated. She enrolled on three subjects in her first semester, but things did not go as well as she had hoped, as a deterioration in her visual impairment led to her beginning to use a screen reader this year instead of the magnifier to which she was accustomed, and she is unable to work with it as quickly as she would like. She consequently enrolled on a single subject in her second semester. Anna uses her screen reader to browse the internet, access the Virtual Campus and read subject content. When reading content in a PDF file, she usually makes a summary by copying sections into a Word document, which she then uses to answer the Continuous Assessment Test (CAT). The computer she uses at work also has a screen reader, so she takes advantage of quiet spells to prepare forum messages. In the case of content she finds harder to understand, such as economic data or tables, she herself converts it to Braille, as she is better able to get to grips with it in the language in question. Sometimes, however, she comes across inaccessible PDF files, which she herself has to convert to Word documents by means of OCR to be able to read them. If there are any shortcomings in terms of page layout though, the files do not convert properly, in which case she has to ask her parents to read the content aloud and record it so she can listen to it later. When that happens, despite the fact that she would like to be able to participate more in forums, she opts not to, because she feels at a disadvantage in relation to the other students, as they will have been able to read the content straight away while it takes her a long time to access and read it.

Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students Pablo Rebaque-Rivas

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On one occasion, she was presented with a CAT that involved watching and commenting on a video. She asked the tutor if she could carry out a different type of activity, but a lack of time meant that the tutor was unable to prepare an alternative. As a result, she was unable to take the CAT. She has sometimes considered telling lecturers about her visual impairment as soon as a semester begins, but is reluctant to do so because she does not want to be treated as a “special” student. Additionally, bringing up her disability in every subject would make her feel that she was being a pain. Anna’s experience at the UOC could be improved by:

♦ Making subject content accessible, particularly scanned materials in PDF files. ♦ Making content available in various formats (e.g. PDF, Braille, audio). ♦ Organising training and awareness-raising sessions on accessibility issues and

inclusive design for those responsible for preparing subject content and CATs. ♦ Preparing alternatives to CATs that involve viewing images and/or videos in

advance. ♦ Making content and CATs more accessible in the first place, without her

previously having to mention her visual impairment.

Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students por Pablo Rebaque-Rivas se encuentra bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 3.0 Unported.

Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students Pablo Rebaque-Rivas

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