Abstract
Dyslexia accounts for the largest proportion of UK higher education students identifying themselves as disabled, and recent widening participation initiatives mean that numbers are likely to rise. Static media (slides, books, handouts) cannot express the temporal aspects of computer programming concepts, and require narratives, which are difficult to follow, especially for dyslexic students.
Code-memory diagrams show changes to memory that individual instructions make over time, and can facilitate deeper and quicker understanding. However, they are error prone and time consuming. An animation software tool could address this. Furthermore, inclusive design would be essential to ensure accessibility to the widest range of students.
This paper focuses on inclusive design aspects of such a tool. The software helped enhance learning for all students, but dyslexic students to a greater degree. It showed that disabled people can identify subtle hidden aspects of human activity, that the target user population is unable to articulate.
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Dixon, M. (2004). Disability as a Vehicle for Identifying Hidden Aspects of Human Activity: Inclusive Design and Dyslexia in Educational Software Development. In: Stary, C., Stephanidis, C. (eds) User-Centered Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society. UI4ALL 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3196. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30111-0_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30111-0_21
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