Thousands of students with disabilities across two universities rely on campus disability services offices to obtain accommodations and services that make full campus participation and learning possible. Our small development team developed an online, mobile-friendly web application to meet the needs of students and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative offices that are serving increasing numbers of students each year.
The resulting application focuses on straight-forward, accessible-to-all features that let students request needed services (such as testing accommodations, ASL translators, or accessible course materials) as needed. On the office side, staff can more easily manage their assigned students and generate reports to measure the impact of their support.
Because the target user population was students with disabilities, extra attention was given to conducting usability testing with student users, and keeping the wide range of potential disabilities in mind as I designed the interface and interactions. In addition to considering assistive technologies, I worked with case workers to understand how disabilities like ADHD might affect a student's use of the site. The self-service model of the resulting site fits with the desire mission of the services offices to empower students with disabilities to take the lead in requesting and scheduling reasonable accommodations.
The challenge:
Create an online application for disabled students, ensuring an accessible experience for the students while improving efficiency and reporting for their support staff
