top of page

AEO Test Center  

An Accessible Experience for disabled students

AEO Staff screen.png
Student check-in 1.png

Overview.


Team

The AEO Test Center is a Service design pilot for students who have cognitive and physical challenges to assure the best environment to take their tests on campus.

JC Miller

Petra Hartman

Carla Saad

The Harvard Accessible Education Office 

Framework. 

AEO test center- onboardiing.png

The Story


The Accessible Education Office (AEO) at Harvard College ran a pilot project, in 2019-2020, with the aim of centralizing the administration of midterm exams for students with disabilities in one testing facility.

This new service design emerged from the necessity of providing students with a suitable environment to perform at their best while taking their tests. This service takes the load of coordinating individual accommodations per student of the faculty's plate.

Workflow & Accommodations 

AEO test center prezo.004.png

How might we secure individualized accommodations for disabled students efficiently?

Personas.

AEO test center prezo.048.png

Studies of personas and barriers

Users: Students with Physical & Cognitive Challenges


As our users have diverse profiles, it was crucial to define our personas per disability to frame the possible ways of providing human-centered solutions.

Persona 1.png
Persona 2.png
Persona 3.png

Journey Mapping

AEO test center prezo.021.png
AEO test center prezo.046.png

Painpoints

 

While looking at the steps that each stakeholder goes through, we identified pain points at check-in for students as well as efficient tracking for proctors.  Those instances cause delays and increase the stress level for students before taking their tests.

Design.

Student check-in 1.png

Check-in: Students' screens

 

The check-in new design takes into account the barriers of every student and leverages the use of their own devices as the settings would be already customized for their comfort. The solution integrates text-to-speech and speech-to-text, to assure a more accessible flow for users. 

Student  check-in 2.png
Student  check-in 3.png
Student  check-in 4.png
Student  check-in 5.png
AEO Staff screen.png

Proctors' screen

Benchmarking

We conducted 6 in-depth interviews with other higher education institutions to assess the effort done within this space and to capture some of the lessons' learned by other schools. 

AEO test center prezo.040.png
AEO test center prezo.041.png

Key Takeaways 

 

  1. Designing for a service design with accessibility as its core essence overarches physical and digital interventions to provide holistic solutions for users.
     

  2. Digital Accessible tools are a necessity in higher education to help students with disabilities to perform at their best.  

Lebanocracia

A Digital Tool for Citizens' Participation

bottom of page