1. PERSONAS OF THE UOC’S VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS
Persona 1: Carles, a screen magnifier user.
Carles is 35 years old. Married with a son,
he sells ONCE (Spain’s national organisation
for the blind) lottery products for a living.
He began studying psychology two years
ago, as it is an area he has always liked. At
secondary school he was torn between
psychology and audiovisual communication.
He eventually opted for the latter, but had
to give it up when he started losing his
sight. Several years later, he decided he
wanted to begin studying again. He has
friends on courses at the Universitat Oberta
de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia,
UOC) and they spoke very highly of the
institution, particularly its continuous
assessment policy. He takes two or three subjects every semester and would like to be
able to practise professionally as a psychologist when he graduates.
He tries to devote a few hours to the UOC every day. His computer is equipped with a
screen magnifier that enlarges everything it displays, thus enabling him to browse the
internet and use the Virtual Campus. Additionally, his screen colours are inverted (i.e.
white text on a black background) as he has mild photophobia.
When working with subject content, he alternates between the PDF files (which he uses
his magnifier to read) and the DAISY audio files posted in classrooms. On one hand, he
does so because he finds sitting in front of the computer reading for a long time without
a break very tiring, and the audio files allow him to make headway with the content. On
the other hand, the audio files also enable him to take advantage of the time he spends
travelling to work, quiet spells once he is there (he does not have access to a computer
in his job) and even the time he spends preparing his meals to listen to new content or
review older material.
Sometimes, however, he has problems with the accessibility of subject content. For
example, the quality of some of the PDF files’ images (illustrations of the anatomy of
the brain, for instance) is very poor, meaning that he struggles to make them out even
when enlarged and has to ask his wife to describe them to him. He has also found a
number of PDF files to be inaccessible, with a fuzzy appearance even when enlarged.
He has consequently had to convert them to Word format himself, but that has proved
very time-consuming as he has encountered page layout problems and had to alter
headers, on top of which the images are lost in the process. Sometimes, furthermore, it
has also been the case that the corresponding audio files have not been available in
classrooms, leaving him no option but to read the content via his screen, despite him
being unable to spend as much time doing that as he would like. On more than one
occasion he has found himself with insufficient time to carry out a Continuous
Assessment Test (CAT) due to the demands of converting a PDF file to a Word
document and the fact that he cannot spend long spells reading from his computer
screen.
Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students
Pablo Rebaque-Rivas
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2. Carles’s experience at the UOC could be improved by:
♦ Making subject content accessible, particularly PDF files and images.
♦ Avoiding the use of scanned material in PDF files.
♦ Improving image quality (e.g. greater size, sharper definition, images in colour,
etc.).
♦ Making content available in various formats (e.g. PDF, Word, audio).
♦ Organising training and awareness-raising sessions on accessibility issues and
inclusive design for those responsible for preparing subject content.
Persona 2: Anna, a screen reader user.
Anna is 25 years old and lives with her
parents. She is a part-time receptionist in a
local authority building in Terrassa.
She has begun studying humanities this
year, as she has always had a liking for art,
literature, etc. While she is currently
studying as a hobby, she does not rule out
taking up a career in the field after
graduating.
She chose the UOC because of the lack of
travel involved; she felt that going to
university by train from her home in
Terrassa every day would have been very
complicated. She enrolled on three subjects
in her first semester, but things did not go
as well as she had hoped, as a deterioration
in her visual impairment led to her beginning to use a screen reader this year instead of
the magnifier to which she was accustomed, and she is unable to work with it as quickly
as she would like. She consequently enrolled on a single subject in her second
semester.
Anna uses her screen reader to browse the internet, access the Virtual Campus and
read subject content. When reading content in a PDF file, she usually makes a summary
by copying sections into a Word document, which she then uses to answer the
Continuous Assessment Test (CAT). The computer she uses at work also has a screen
reader, so she takes advantage of quiet spells to prepare forum messages. In the case
of content she finds harder to understand, such as economic data or tables, she herself
converts it to Braille, as she is better able to get to grips with it in the language in
question.
Sometimes, however, she comes across inaccessible PDF files, which she herself has to
convert to Word documents by means of OCR to be able to read them. If there are any
shortcomings in terms of page layout though, the files do not convert properly, in which
case she has to ask her parents to read the content aloud and record it so she can
listen to it later. When that happens, despite the fact that she would like to be able to
participate more in forums, she opts not to, because she feels at a disadvantage in
relation to the other students, as they will have been able to read the content straight
away while it takes her a long time to access and read it.
Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students
Pablo Rebaque-Rivas
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3. On one occasion, she was presented with a CAT that involved watching and
commenting on a video. She asked the tutor if she could carry out a different type of
activity, but a lack of time meant that the tutor was unable to prepare an alternative.
As a result, she was unable to take the CAT.
She has sometimes considered telling lecturers about her visual impairment as soon as
a semester begins, but is reluctant to do so because she does not want to be treated as
a “special” student. Additionally, bringing up her disability in every subject would make
her feel that she was being a pain.
Anna’s experience at the UOC could be improved by:
♦ Making subject content accessible, particularly scanned materials in PDF files.
♦ Making content available in various formats (e.g. PDF, Braille, audio).
♦ Organising training and awareness-raising sessions on accessibility issues and
inclusive design for those responsible for preparing subject content and CATs.
♦ Preparing alternatives to CATs that involve viewing images and/or videos in
advance.
♦ Making content and CATs more accessible in the first place, without her
previously having to mention her visual impairment.
Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students por Pablo Rebaque-Rivas se encuentra
bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 3.0 Unported.
Personas of the UOC’s visually impaired students
Pablo Rebaque-Rivas
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