Usability Features for Arabic Assistive Technology for Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a common type of language disability which results in difficulty with reading, writing, spelling, word comprehension, math and communication, all skills which are necessary for understanding language. Assistive technology is seen as a great tool to build individual strength and improve academic achievements among dyslexia students. However, studies on designing and developing tools to support dyslexics in Arabic are very limited. The main issue in any kind of computer applications including an assistive technology is usability. The aim of this paper is to propose a set of required usability features for the Arabic assistive technology. The presented work consists of two steps. Step one identify the required features by conducting experiments on normal educational technologies and gain feedback from dyslexia students. Step two consider the development of a low-fidelity prototype and its evaluation. The experiments were conducted in two types of participants (dyslexics and normal students) to extract the usability features. Features extracted regards feedback, accessibility, navigation, representative icons and menus.