Members of the Institute of Informatics from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Slovenia, in cooperation with the National Council of Disability Organizations of Slovenia, organized a workshop on 'Empowering Users with Disabilities to participate in the User Testing Process'. This workshop focused on familiarizing persons with disabilities about the process of usability testing, their rights, and the importance, that they participate. The workshop was attended by persons with various disabilities.  

After the workshop, in cooperation with students of the master's study program 'Informatics and data technologies', participants tested the usability of a prototype developed by the students for this purpose. In this way, the students tested themselves as facilitators and observers of the user testing process, while persons with disabilities participated as users or participants in the testing process. The activities were organized within the INTUX project.

The INTUX project

The INTUX project, funded by the EU - Erasmus+ programme, has two main objectives: 

1. To create long-term change and increase students' skills in the field of User Experience (UX) to be able to take into account the needs of all users in their professional fields, and
2.  To empower people with disabilities to be aware of their rights and to take a more active role in usability testing.

The project’s coordinator is Turiba University from Latvia and involves several other partners, such as Universidad Politécnica de Madrid from Spain, Asociación Autismo Sevilla from Spain, The National Council of Disability Organizations of Slovenia, Latvijas Cilveku Ar Ipasam Vajadzibam Sadarbibas Organizacija Sustento and FUNKA NU AB from Sweden.

More information: INtroducing training on user Testing with people with disabilities into UX design and related higher education programmes