JournalMate

The Problem

There are roughly 780 million people around the world with dyslexia and approximately 10% of the Irish population are affected by dyslexia.

Symptoms of dyslexia include:
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● Difficulty reading, including reading aloud
● Slow, labour-intensive reading and writing
● Problems spelling
● Problems retrieving words
● Difficulty summarising a story
● Difficulty memorising

Although a definite number of people with ADHD is less clear, 5% of university students in Ireland were engaged with student services for ADHD in 2020.

Symptoms of ADHD include:
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● Difficulty focusing
● Disorganisation
● Problems listening
● Forgetfulness
● Indecision

Academic journal articles can be difficult to read, even for students without these conditions. Currently, some academic journal sites offer a screen reader for students with dyslexia but there is very little consideration for accessibility features and inclusive design.

At the moment, if students want to customise the appearance of an academic journal article, they have no choice but to copy the article, paste it into Microsoft Word or Google Docs, which usually creates formatting issues, then they can finally change the font size, line spacing and letter spacing and print the document. This can put added stress on the student and take up additional time that could be spent reading.

The Solution

The competitor analysis conducted at the beginning of the project identified a number of applications which were suitable for redesign and redevelopment. However, these applications didn’t meet the needs or requirements of problems identified during the initial research phase. As a result of this, JournalMate was created from the ground up as a website which takes inspiration from some well-known academic journal sites, as well as new features that are linked to key findings from the user interviews.

JournalMate is a combination of an academic journal site and a file management system. There is a full accessibility toolkit which gives the user the freedom to customise the appearance of the academic journal article to suit their needs. JournalMate’s accessibility features include enlarged text, line and letter spacing, a dyslexia friendly font, dark mode and an enlarged cursor. In addition to this, there are other features in the design including a dictionary, section summaries, and notes and highlights.

The Process

The development of JournalMate encompassed all stages of the design process, with a lot of the focus being given to the user research prior to any major design effort.

Survey
To follow on from the initial research of both dyslexia and ADHD, a survey was circulated around friends and in Facebook groups specifically for students with these conditions. There were 74 respondents in total which provided a great amount of quantitative data.

The most interesting data collected from the survey was:

Interviews
Following on from the survey, six user interviews were carried out for the purpose of gathering qualitative data. Two PhD students (one with dyslexia and one with ADHD), two recent graduates (both with dyslexia) and two Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) were interviewed. For me, it was important to interview two SNAs as they provided valuable information on each condition, as well as the facilities that are available to these students at a primary and post-primary level. I wanted to discover what programmes and processes students are most comfortable with using, before they enter third-level education.

Based on the findings from the interviews, two personas were developed along with empathy maps. The main persona was Conor Hennigan, a PhD student with dyslexia, who was recently diagnosed with ADHD.

Scenario
In addition to this, a scenario was created to capture what users would experience as they proceed toward using the ideal solution of JournalMate.

All of the above user research helped me to gain an empathetic understanding of the problem I was trying to solve.
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Problem Statement
The next stage of the process involved stating the users’ needs and problems. The problem statements were based on the pain points of users:
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● How might we reduce the strain on students with dyslexia and ADHD when reading?
● How might we design an optimal method for students to organise academic journals articles?
● How might we improve the concentration of students with dyslexia and ADHD when reading academic reports?

Ideation
The next stage of the design process was ideation. I had an idea of what I wanted the site to look like. Through my interviews, I knew it was important to take inspiration from websites that students are familiar and comfortable with using, so JournalMate would be just as intuitive to use.

Wireframe
Following on from the ideation, I moved on to the wireframe. For this project, I actually tested with the wireframe. This was hugely beneficial for me as it allowed me to begin the testing phase sooner than I had planned. In previous projects, I had to wait until the first iteration was ready to test. With JournalMate, I received invaluable information from testing the wireframe, as well as insights into the most appropriate colour palettes to implement.

Visual Design
As mentioned previously, I took inspiration from sites that students were most comfortable with using when completing assignments. In addition to this, I applied elements of a dyslexia style guide provided by the British Dyslexia Association as well as the most effective recommendations for ADHD. The colour contrast was approved using a contrast checker.

In addition to these, I constantly referred back to paralympics.org for how accessibility features actually look on desktop. For me, consulting paralympics.org as well as the IBM Accessibility Standards, allowed me to create an inclusive and accessible design for JournalMate.

Testing
After the final designs were complete and JournalMate was a functioning prototype in Figma, it was tested with an undergraduate student, a Master's student and two PhD students as a traditional usability test with some follow up questions to gather qualitative results.
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The Result

Universal Design Principles