Background
Our client is Alicia James, a speech language pathologist at Southview School. Southview School is an educational institution specifically tailored to students 5-21 years old with various forms of developmental disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome, and also visual and motor limitations. As with any type of school, academics and learning is a high priority. But at Southview School, it is particularly important for students with special needs to develop develop basic living skills. Having appropriate leisure activities is necessary in order to ease the transition into adult life.
It can difficult or time-consuming to prepare and assemble leisure materials for students with a wide range of disabilities. Southview School tries to have approximately a 1:1 staff to student ratio, but in some cases a student has to work semi-autonomously. It can be challenging to find leisure activities that can be done without the constant attention of a caretaker. Age appropriate leisure material is also sparse, as most material aimed at students with special needs can be more childish in nature, which is not a perfect fit for students age 13 or above. In order to solve some of these problems, our client has request we design a web-based solution to provide easily-accessible leisure activities for special needs students ages 13-21.
It can difficult or time-consuming to prepare and assemble leisure materials for students with a wide range of disabilities. Southview School tries to have approximately a 1:1 staff to student ratio, but in some cases a student has to work semi-autonomously. It can be challenging to find leisure activities that can be done without the constant attention of a caretaker. Age appropriate leisure material is also sparse, as most material aimed at students with special needs can be more childish in nature, which is not a perfect fit for students age 13 or above. In order to solve some of these problems, our client has request we design a web-based solution to provide easily-accessible leisure activities for special needs students ages 13-21.
Exact Need
The client needs a web-based programs with easy navigation and age appropriate content matter that is customizable by the teacher. Currently, the client uses more than eight different web-based programs for in-class leisure activities. These have navigation flows that are complicated and confusing, with too many additional pages to go through before reaching the desired activity. These students also have attention spans of less than five minutes, so the current solutions are difficult to use independently . Furthermore, since these activities are currently spread out over several subscription based websites, the teachers must switch back and forth between different programs to access activities they specifically want for a particular class and student. This makes it difficult and time-consuming for the teachers to customize leisure activities for classes with students of different abilities. In addition, each existing solutions have content matter geared toward younger students instead of the client’s desired age range target, ages 13-21. The client wants a program with quick navigation, a wider range of accessibility functions, and more age-appropriate, customizable content matter for individual use both in-class and at home
Project Scope
We will deliver a web-based program with easy and straight-forward navigation flow for the students, with accessibility functions for those with motor and visual limitations. It will allow the teachers to easily upload and compile their age-appropriate leisure content (songs, videos, and stories) they currently have into one place.
Design Specifications
Schedule
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