Tic en la vida escolar de estudiantes que presentan discapacidad visual (ICT in school life of students that present visually impaired)

En el presente artículo se justifica el desarrollo de herramientas de Tecnologías dela Informaciónyla Comunicación–TIC de aprendizaje, que permitan mejorar la práctica de inclusión en el entorno social a niños con discapacidad visual. Enfocado desde el uso del software, inicialmente se identifican estrategias y metodologías actuales que implementan los pedagogos con sus estudiantes; seguidamente, se presenta la accesibilidad web, como un conjunto de iniciativas necesarias en el momento de crear cualquier herramienta software y, además, se hace referencia a premisas de estudios y trabajos realizados en este campo. Finalmente, se expone el trabajo futuro que se puede realiza

E-learning in higher education: designing for diversity

"This research was conducted to compare methods of e-learning accessibility evaluation that may be applied in a higher education context. Results of ""objective"" accessibility evaluation of e-learning technologies using automated tools were compared to results of ""subjective"" accessibility evaluation with student participants. It was found that objective and subjective accessibility evaluation of e-learning technologies both yield useful, albeit different, information. To further explore subjective accessibility evaluation, results and student perceptions were compared following moderated and unmoderated testing sessions. Neither the efficiency of completing tasks in a sample online course nor the number of accessibility problems detected were deemed significantly affected by the format of the testing session. However, most students preferred to participate in an unmoderated testing session where they felt less self-conscious and as though they could interact more naturally with the technology. Findings from this study point to the importance of considering not only objective accessibility evaluation and accessibility guideline conformance as measures of the accessibility of e-learning technologies, but also the subjective experiences of students as they engage with the technologies. There is also value in taking a holistic approach towards evaluating e-learning accessibility by considering the accessibility of learning outcomes (factoring in the learning context to the evaluation) in addition to the accessibility of individual e-learning technologies. Because accessibility is a variable that is important to all students, and not just students with disabilities, it is critical that institutions of higher education work with a variety of stakeholders to determine not only how best to evaluate e-learning accessibility, but also how to ensure that the results of accessibility evaluation are widely disseminated in a manner that is likely to have a broad impact on enhancing e-learning accessibility for diverse student populations.

Essays on the Influence of Website Emotional Design Features on Users' Emotional and Behavioral Responses

As the Internet technologies have become more advanced, as well as online users that have become more sophisticated, the competition in the e-commerce is increasingly aggressive for online vendors. Therefore, online user experience has emerged as a major issue in developing strategies for online vendors to gain advantage over such changing competitive landscape. Although past studies have widely explored the online user experience, they largely focus on the website design feature (designer) perspective and often ignore the user perspective. Considering both design feature and user perspectives, this research provides a better understanding how different website design features enhance user experience.Three essays are conducted in this dissertation to address the importance of website design features in influencing user experience. The first essay explores how website visual appeal and ease of use impact users' perceptions of usefulness, trust, and intention to use in the context of unfamiliar website. The study reveals that visual appeal produces a greater influence on the users' perceptions than ease of use. The findings also indicate that both visual appeal and ease of use are contributing factors in developing online trust among male users, with visual appeal dominating trust formation among female users.The second essay investigates how website visual order and complexity influence users' initial aesthetic impressions of a website, and how these impressions subsequently impact engagement and intention to use the website. An experiment is conducted to test the durability of the visual design features across two exposure times (1-second vs. no time limit). The results suggest that user can quickly evaluate websites (within 1 second), and these evaluations remain consistent even when time constraints are removed. In addition, the findings also reveal the importance of visual order on user attention span and attention on design elements presented on web pages.The third essay examines how individual differences in the centrality of visual aesthetics (CVA) influence users' perceptions of a website. A series of three experiments is conducted in this study to provide guidelines how to capture CVA, as well as how CVA subsequently influence users' response toward a websiteManagement Science & Information Systems (PhD