**3. E-learning materials for students with disabilities**

When dealing with e-learning materials, we do not only prepare the content (text), but we must include graphic and multimedia elements to ensure greater interactivity


### **Table 3.**

*Basic e-learning solutions for teaching students with Asperger's syndrome.*

### *Improving Accessibility of e-Learning Templates for Students with Disabilities DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101931*

and interest. E-learning materials must provide SWD with good orientation, sovereign use, transparency, accessibility, and encourage motivation to learn. E-learning material contains several types of media and comprises all the advantages provided by ICT. Namely, in addition to the text part, it can also include audio recordings, videos, animations, and simulations. A significant advantage is an interactivity allowing easy and quick feedback on exercises and tests. According to Lombardi et al. [44], professors often make online materials available on a course website, course management system or online education platform, which allows students to interact with learning materials outside the classroom. Interactivity can also be reached through interactive whiteboards (e.g., SMARTboard), study pods or via mobile technologies, which provides a wide range of learning tools, for instance, digital books with interactive elements [9].

Clark and Mayer [45] highlight two problems in designing e-learning materials. The first one is the fact that the potential of graphics in e-learning materials as visual media is underused. On the other hand, we encounter materials that authors overdecorate and overdesign because they try to achieve greater motivation. Such a design of materials can lead to inhibition of the learning process. When designing and adding graphics to teaching materials, it is fundamental that these graphics are relevant to the content.

Much of the printed learning material is unattractive to look at, does not hold an individual's attention, and does not arouse interest in reading further [46]. Therefore, Lockwood [46] believes that an essential goal in preparing materials should be to use as many resources as possible to create an environment that motivates the student. Apart from the topic, the writing process itself and the appropriate levels of difficulty, typography are also vital, which must bring high readability and make reading a pleasure. Of great importance are the design of entire pages, the placement of objects, and the application of rules. Graphic design is a vital component of texts, as it can significantly raise a student's level of motivation [46]. For instance, using a graphic organizer for students with learning disabilities [47] or students with ASD in teaching mathematics [48].

When using graphics, integration of text is very important, as a poor connection of these elements can lead to student confusion. A study has shown that poor integration of text and graphics can lead to distraction because visual elements take on attention that would otherwise be focused on important information [49].

### **3.1 Prototyping e-learning material for students with disabilities**

Preparing e-learning material for SWD demands different preparation and design of e-learning materials. Accordingly, in the following subsections, we provide recommendations for B&VI, D/HH, and students with ASD. Recommendations are provided individually for each group of students, as their needs and requirements differ.

When providing recommendations for the accessibility of e-learning materials to SWD, we followed the recommendations on online accessibility and guidelines WCAG, as both e-learning materials and websites for SWD are accessed through the same user interface. WCAG defines [50] the following principles when designing e-learning materials for SWD: (1) perceivable, (2) operable, (3) understandable, (4) and robust. Each principle includes guidelines with success criteria. Standard ETSI EN 301549 [27], for example, specifies requirements for ICT to be accessible for people with disabilities, emphasizing that ICT must enable SWD to search for, identify and implement ICT and access the provided information, regardless of physical, cognitive, or sensory abilities. European standard ETSI EN 301549 was updated to adopt WCAG for information and communications technology (ICT), including web content, electronic documents, and non-web software, such as native mobile apps.

According to Cooper [30], it is recommended to all educators to include at least the following guidelines in the design of web or software course components:


The above-listed recommendations were used as the main foundation in our prototyping for e-learning materials for SWD.

## *3.1.1 E-learning material for blind or visually impaired students*

When preparing e-learning material for B&VI, we must pay attention to those who use screen readers and/or screen magnifiers. As to the use of screen readers, we must be careful to write all the information. We also need to write what we see in the pictorial material. It allows screen readers to pass on the information about what is in the image to blind people, as the computer program cannot describe the image material at this time.

Regarding those who use screen magnifiers, however, we need to pay attention to appearance and shape. It should not be taken for granted that all the information that is written and the pictorial material will be seen without difficulty. Instead, we must consider the following layout of the e-learning material:


In accordance with the recommendations for e-education of B&VI students, the following elements of e-learning material should be used (**Figure 1**):

1.Title (title of the lecture or chapter).


*Improving Accessibility of e-Learning Templates for Students with Disabilities DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101931*

### **Figure 1.**

*Prototype of e-learning template for blind or visually impaired students.*


### *3.1.2 E-learning material for deaf or hard-of-hearing students*

In the literature, two appropriate examples of e-learning materials for the D/HH were examined, and we followed the initial design. We immediately noticed that the examples of e-materials differ from other conventional e-materials, due to the video with the sign language interpreter and captions/subtitles. This is essential for e-materials for the D/HH, as we do not need it for the B&VI and people with ASD. Both examples also contain the title, text, and pictorial material, which are highly recommended for e-materials for the D/HH. Another example includes a video with a lecturer that D/HH can read from his lips, the possibility of multilingualism, which is needed only for international e-materials, and the possibility of sound, which is more important for the B&VI than for the D/HH persons.

Based on the recommendations for e-learning of D/HH described in the previous chapter and judging by two good examples of the proposal of e-learning material for D/HH (**Figure 2**), we can understand that we need to use the following elements of e-learning material (**Figure 3**):



### **Figure 2.**

*Example of an e-learning template for deaf or hard-of-hearing students.*

### **Figure 3.**

*Prototype of e-learning template for deaf or hard-of-hearing students.*

