*3.1.3 E-learning material for students with Asperger's syndrome*

Persons with ASD are the most unpredictable of our three groups of SWD. Hearing problems are common to D/HH students, vision problems are common to B&VI students, and students with ASD have very different needs. Therefore, it is difficult for these people to make universal recommendations that would apply to everyone. Some are attracted to the blue color. Others would immediately close the e-learning material when looking at it. Even the pictorial material can be liked by someone, but someone else associates the motive in the picture with a bad experience and panics. Nevertheless, based on the literature some recommendations should be used for all people with ASD. It is advisable to stick to them when preparing e-learning material:


The prototype website (WordPress) for people with ASD was created in 2015 as part of the European project Autism&Uni [52] and is intended for research, design, production, and evaluation of tools to help people with ASD during their studies (**Figure 4**). As we can see from our list of recommendations, it contains only a few graphic elements and content navigation. We can conclude that the prototype is poorly designed, does not solve the problems that people with ASD have online, and does not attract them.

From the recommendations for e-learning for students with ASD, we can understand that we need to use the following elements in e-learning material (**Figure 5**):


### **Figure 4.**

*Example of a website for students with Asperger's syndrome [52].*

### **Figure 5.**

*Prototype of e-learning template for students with Asperger's syndrome.*


learning e-learning material and so people with ASD gain information through reading, visual demonstration, and sound, which dramatically affects the memorization of the given information).

5.Navigate with information about the previous and next chapters.

### **3.2 Evaluating prototypes: a case study**

Our study was mainly intended to assess the approval of e-learning templates based on literature recommendations and prototypes. We created several examples of a PowerPoint presentation handout, namely one non-adapted disability (neutral handout), only based on the text, which we compared with a customized handout for an individual studied group of SWD. This was presented in the questionnaires only in the form of a captured image. Along with each handout, the survey also contained an attribution of the content elements represented on the handout.

### *3.2.1 The case*

To explore the possibilities of e-learning materials, we have conducted a presurvey of frequently used methods in the field of study. A review of several studies [53, 54] dealing with similar questions about SWD showed that a survey experiment method was used to investigate such questions. As a result, we also decided to collect data using the survey process, so that we would use the survey questionnaire as a measuring instrument.

Our study focused on three groups of SWD, namely (1) blind and visually impaired (B&VI), (2) deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH), and (3) people with ASD (only highly functional autistic people with Asperger's syndrome participated in the study). In connection with the latter, we aimed to find participants for each of the groups who met the following criteria: the person is computer literate, the person knows the education process, and the person has prior experience in using electronic material.

### *3.2.2 Research content design*

In preparing the unadjusted disability handout, we followed the recommendations [55]. The neutral handout contained only the title and text with the recommended shape and font size. In contrast, the customized handouts were designed according to the recommendations and prototypes to produce e-learning material for SWD. The planned scheme of e-learning materials for individual observed groups is defined in **Table 4**.

As shown in **Table 4**, each experimental group of persons first evaluated the neutral and then the adapted e-material. According to the specific needs of each group, we prepared a separate customized handout for each of the groups, specific to them or their needs. The production of these e-learning materials is presented in the following sections.

We designed the text on the handout as simple, neutral, and understandable as possible. We followed the presentation at the annual Microsoft event, held on 26 October 2016. At the event, a fig tree was presented as an example of a presentation. In our case, we used the Slovenian symbol—a linden leaf. The material for the e-learning material was taken from the website [56]. An example of an unadjusted disability handout is shown in **Figure 6**.


### **Table 4.**

*Planned scheme of e-learning materials for individual observed groups of persons with disabilities.*


**Figure 6.** *Neutral handout.*
