Program Details
Universal Design for Instruction Lab
Heuristic evaluations by our experts: bring your syllabus, lesson plan, handout or class website and we will offer universal design and usability feedback. (If you did not bring anything, come by anyway!)
We will base our feedback on standards used to guide Universal Design for Instruction, interface design, and usability testing, as we consider questions of purpose, context, and population with regard to specific learning materials.
Definition: Universal Design for Instruction
"Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) is an approach to teaching that consists of the proactive design and use of inclusive instructional strategies that benefit a broad range of learners including students with disabilities. The nine Principles of UDI provide a framework for college faculty to use when designing or revising instruction to be responsive to diverse student learners and to minimize the need for "special" accommodations and retrofitted changes to the learning environment. UDI operates on the premise that the planning and delivery of instruction as well as the evaluation of learning can incorporate inclusive attributes that embrace diversity in learners without compromising academic standards."
- Scott, S.S., McGuire, J.M., & Embry, P. (2002). Universal design for instruction fact sheet. Storrs : University of Connecticut , Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability.
Definition: Usability
"The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use."
- Effectiveness: The accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals
- Efficiency: The resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals
- Satisfaction: Freedom from discomfort, and positive attitudes towards the use of the product
- ISO 9241-11(1998): Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals (VDTs)—Part 11: Guidance on Usability.