Exploring the Design Considerations for Developing an Interactive Tabletop Learning Tool for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Usability, ease of use and user experience (UX) are crucial quality concerns to develop any learning applications for children with autism. Several design considerations are proposed to design and develop different kinds of learning tools for autistic children but no study was found that explicitly focused to understand the design consideration required to design a tabletop learning tool for children with autism. Therefore, the objective of this research is to reveal the fundamental design considerations for developing a tabletop learning tool for autistic children with enhanced usability and UX. Two studies were conducted following ethnographic study and semi-structured interview, while the interviewing study was replicated with eighteen teachers of autistic children. The study data were analyzed through content analysis. As outcome, this research, firstly revealed a set of design considerations that includes, for example, affordance, intuitiveness, portability, ease-to-use, clear & concise interface, metaphoric design, easy to learn, interactive, visual feedback, multimodal feedback and pictography. Secondly, proposed a design solution to develop the tabletop learning tool based on the revealed design considerations.