The first workshop for the Digital Access Advisor project took place on the 12th June. In this workshop we covered the following themes:
- Transitions and lifelong learning
- Accessible and Appropriate Design
We had a good turnout, with both students and staff in attendance, which ultimately led to some interesting discussions.
There were clear design themes that came out of these workshops. Firstly, the importance of empowerment as an overarching goal for the systems we should design. Empowerment needs to run throughout the design, with users being able to decide how to use the AI tool. However, the theme of empowerment also needs to be considered when thinking about data privacy. AI tools learn from the data they are fed, and therefore require data to grow. Therefore, when designing the tool we need to consider a responsible use of data by navigating data sharing, legislation and data use.
The next design theme is specialisation of disabilities. An issue was raised in the discussion, that people with the same disabilities may not experience the same challenges and barriers to their learning. Therefore, the AI may need to approach each case individually to suggest the correct support. If this doesn’t happen, the user may not agree with the AI and therefore it will not be fulfilling its role of support.
The discussions around AI also focused on the potential for non-judgemental conversations. Following the COVID19 pandemic, students have struggled with feelings of isolation, and some of the workshop participants discussed the idea that by including Augmented Reality, captioning and other tools in the Advisor, it could support students in attending lectures that they may have previously struggled to attend.
We’re exploring these themes in our next workshop on the 20th June, and will update the blog with more findings from this workshop.
Thanks for reading!
The Digital Access Advisor team