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Pedagogy and education
Reference:

Formation of Requirements for University Website Interfaces Based on Accessibility and Usability Standards

Kiryanov Denis Aleksandrovich

ORCID: 0000-0001-8502-8333

Master's Degree, Department of Information Systems and Software Engineering, Baltic State Technical University "Voenmeh" anmed after D. F. Ustinov

190005, Russia, Saint Petersburg, 1st Krasnoarmeyskaya str., 1

dennis.kiryanov@gmail.com
Other publications by this author
 
 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0676.2023.1.37503

EDN:

MWZPWQ

Received:

07-02-2022

Published:

04-04-2023

Abstract: The research subject is the methods of building the user interface of university websites based on the intended purpose, the needs of the audience, and user limitations, including sensory-motor and cognitive-psychological limitations. As a starting point for studying the target audience and compliance with accessibility standards, eight university websites are analyzed based on open-source data. The main violations that prevent users from using a university's website to varying degrees are considered, as well as the most well-known and often-used approaches to interface design and design that make interfaces more convenient without overloading the user's short-term memory and causing premature fatigue. As a result of the research, the basic requirements for designing the interface of the university's website are formed. According to the main conclusion of this study, to adapt the University's website to the limitations of users' capabilities, it is necessary to follow the main standards of usability and accessibility considered, such as GOST R 52872-2019, WCAG 2.1 and GOST R ISO 9241-20-2014, and also take into account the peculiarities of legislation that affect the formation of sections of the site and its accessibility for people with disabilities. It is necessary to adhere to such principles of interface organization and information presentation as Hick's Law, Gestalt Principles, Miller's Law, Jacob's Law, and Heuristics. The author's special contribution to the topic is the analysis of the verification of eight sites of Russian universities for compliance with accessibility standards. This analysis showed that even the visually impaired versions of the sites reviewed do not meet accessibility standards, which makes it difficult for people with disabilities to access information and emphasizes the importance of the study. The novelty of the research lies in the formation of the basic requirements for the user interface of university websites. The study's results can be further used in constructing such information systems.


Keywords:

cognitive impairment, motor disorders, Hick's law, short-term memory, Jakob's law, accessibility, usability, interface design, WCAG, usability heuristics
This article written in Russian. You can find original text of the article here .
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Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The reviewed article discusses the issues of forming requirements for the interface of websites of higher educational institutions, based on accessibility and usability standards. The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that the information posted on university websites does not always meet the needs of their visitors, and when designing the user interface of mass software, it is important to take into account the limitations of the user audience, including sensory-motor and cognitive-psychological limitations. The authors of the article proceed from the fact that taking into account these features will allow us to design a user-friendly website interface. The scientific novelty of the presented research, according to the reviewer, lies in the requirements formulated by the author of the article for the user interface of websites of higher educational institutions. The systematization of these requirements was carried out on the basis of an analysis of the websites of eight universities of the Russian Federation. The text of the article highlights: introduction, six sections of the main part of the work, conclusion, bibliography. In the first section, the purpose of the sites is considered, it is noted that in universities they are intended for use by a wide user audience, including people with health restrictions, who, in accordance with Russian legislation, should be provided with unhindered access to information. The description of the target audience is reflected in the second section, which reflects the general portrait of students formed on the basis of statistical data and generalization of literary sources. This part of the work is illustrated with two tables and two figures. Further, in the third section, the author outlines the basic requirements for the hardware and software platform of university websites. The text of the fourth section is divided into five paragraphs: The main limitations of opportunities and their description, Hick's Law, Gestalt principles, Miller's Law, Jacob's Law, each of which reflects the patterns of user behavior formulated at different times, which the author considers in relation to visitors to university websites. In the fifth section, the sites were checked for compliance with international standards for the accessibility of web content (WCAG), warnings were found, mainly related to poor formatting and text presentation on the pages of the analyzed university sites. Further, in the sixth section, the main requirements for the user interface of the university's website are formulated: Accessibility requirements, Requirements for the placement of content and structural elements, Requirements for compliance with the color scheme and text presentation. In conclusion, the article concludes that in order to adapt the university's website to the limitations of user capabilities, it is necessary to follow basic practices such as: Hick's Law, Gestalt Principles, Miller's Law, Jacob's Law and Heuristics. The bibliography of the article includes 37 sources – modern publications of domestic and foreign scientists in periodical scientific journals, legislative acts and standards, as well as online resources. There are targeted references to the sources listed in the list of references in the text, which indicates that there is an appeal to opponents in the publication. As a remark, it should be noted that the title of the fourth section "Limitations of the user's capabilities of the University's website and ways to eliminate them" requires editing, since it can be interpreted ambiguously by readers – it should be more clearly reflected in the wording that the author advocates the elimination of precisely the limitations of capabilities. The reviewed material has been prepared on an urgent topic, reflects the results of the research conducted by the author and can be published after the elimination of the noted defect.
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