Paper #24

MyAbility: A Web Portal for Students with Challenge based on Web Content Accessibility Guideline 2.0

Abdul Aziz Hamzah, Zatul Amilah Shaffiei, Nor Hayati Abdul Hamid and Nurulnadwan Aziz

Abstract: Statistic of people with challenge in Malaysia has been gradually increased. People with challenge are those who have certain impairments such as physical, visual, hearing, learning, speech, mental and multiple challenges that may hinder their effective interaction and participation in society. This also includes the students with challenge in higher learning institution (i.e. Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia). Based on the interview, it was reported that there is lack of proper platform for students with challenge to interact and access the information particularly related to university, since their requirements on the facilities provided are different with general students. Thus, higher learning institution including Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia has come out with a policy regarding students with challenge based on five (5) principles which are inclusivity, accessibility, equity, flexibility and equivalence to bridge the gap between the students with challenge, facilities and the communities in the university. To fulfil the policy, technology should be used as a medium for students with challenge to get greater opportunity to interact and access the information. Therefore, this project aims to develop a web portal for students with challenge which focus on accessibility principle. Web Development Life Cycle (WDLC) methodology has been utilized to complete the development of web portal, which is based on the standard of Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.0. User experience testing has been carried out in terms of the functionality provided by the developed web portal to the students with challenge. It was found that the accessibility elements provided in the developed web portal are well function. Hence, this study concludes that a proper design and development of a web portal could bridge the gap between students with challenge, communities as well as facilities provided in university.

Keywords: Human computer interaction; Interaction design; Inclusive design; Web content accessibility; People with challenge; User Experience.