CASE STUDY

Supporting Autistic Students
towards Social Interaction

Interactive game with multiplayer features that will not only support autistic students to interact with each other in a team but will also provide a stimulus for experiencing a new environment based on different scenarios.

Role

UX Designer

Team

Sahith Uppala
Preksha Kulkarni
Kanak Sahu
Karthiga

Project Specifications

Academic Project
Duration : 6 Weeks

Deliverables

UX/UI Design:

Competitive analysis
User surveys and one-on-one interviews
Personas
User journeys and task flows
Site map
Low-fidelity wireframes
High-fidelity mockups and prototypes
Usability tests and findings

Overview

Autism is a spectrum disorder that describes a wide range of disorders marked by difficulties with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communication. It is broadly classified into major categories:

Lower functioning autism

Lower functioning autistic children are non-verbal or limited verbal children who cannot maintain eye contact, are always detached from their immediate surroundings and cannot do any fundamental daily life activities. They need care, assistance and attention all day long.

Lower functioning autism

Higher functioning children are good with speech and vocabulary, are intelligent, can maintain eye-contact and can live independently.

Problem

We identified that the biggest issue for autistic people especially children is their lack of social interaction ability which leads to a lot of other problems. We have discovered via the study that there are many other considerations to keep in mind when designing for autistic children as they have repetitive behavior and are very adamant.

Solution

A gaming mobile application that can help autistic kids enhance their social skills and instill confidence within themselves so that they can connect with people without feeling apprehensive and experience a sense of belongingness

Process

Data Collection: We started with a literature review to understand more about autism, We came across a few research articles that discuss Persistent challenges faced by autistic people and why experts report this problem is difficult to address. As there was no possibility to talk to the autistic kids who were our primary users, we interviewed secondary users who were majorly people involved with these kids such as therapists, psychologists, educators.

Design Exploration: We further planned to pursue the design direction of supporting high-level autistic kids for social interaction because these were the major pain points observed and identified among most of the high-functioning autistic students of age group 8- 14 years.

Prototype and Evaluation: Our team conducted self reflective evaluation and conducted the usability evaluation using think aloud protocol. Our questions were mainly focused on understanding whether the application would be easy for the users to use and understand or not. We also focused on asking the questions around the visual look and feel of the application to avoid any trigger. Thus, accessibility was our major concern.

“I view ‘autistic’ as a word for a part of how my brain works, not for a narrow set of behaviors and certainly not for a set of boundaries of a stereotype that I have to stay inside.”

– Amanda Baggs

Data Collection

Observations

As it is a very sensitive topic, The health care centers wouldn't allow us to monitor autistic children. We were left with no choice but to take a different approach to gather the observation data. We dig deep into the lives of a few autistic children and tried to understand their daily activities, and behaviors.

Observation Outcome

Getting insights from virtual observation was really a challenging part, we tried to watch real life documentaries and tried to understand their real-life activities, habits. We observed that 3 out of 4 people were having nonverbal autism and They are sensitive to any kind of sound. They try to speak but cannot express their thoughts properly. I observed that they are repeating the words and things that we do in front of them. Few autistic children tend to throw things when they are angry, In that situation, it might be a difficult task to teach them using technology. The main important thing that we observed is the problem of communication.

Interviews

As our target audience were autistic children, It's not really possible to interview them. Even if we try to interview them they might not be able to communicate properly. To get proper insights we contacted the caretakers of autistic children and doctors who spend their entire day with them. Each of the team members interviewed 2 people which is a total of 8 people which lasted for 1 hour each.

Interview Findings

1. The interviews made us realize that social skills were something the kids were lagging in. These interviews changed our perspective on issues faced by autistic kids. Continuous support was required for them to flourish and get rid of their social anxiety

2. Their Attention span is low so we need to come up with a solution that keeps them engaged

3. Due to their repetitive behaviour, they have a hard time adjusting to changes in their routine. Therefore, it is necessary to gradually introduce new technology to autistic children over time.

4. Assistive technology should be tailored to the needs of the kids. It should include unique activities catered to the children's interests. Children with autism cannot be forced to do anything; everything depends entirely on their preferences.

Literature Review

Solutions that have been implemented to address this problem and best practices :

Applications and Technology

Apps like milo help children to identify words with the help of assistive reading. It has also been proven that assistive reading holds their focus on to a particular thing. Showing things visually creates a strong impact on the children's brain. These assistive technologies can help children in different ways from learning basic communication to staying safe.

Virtual Reality

Floreo is a startup that has established the solution of using VR to help autistic students make eye contacta and interact in the social set up using different scenarios. It also has a feature where a child's parent can also play along to maintain teh interaction and track teh child's behaviour.

Understanding

Certain traits, such as repeated behaviors or hobbies, a strong desire for regularity and routine, changes in sensory processing, and narrowed and intensely focused interests in particular areas, can be seen in children with autism. Children who get early intervention services can improve their emotional awareness, social abilities, and other characteristics of typical development.

Persistent challenges and why experts report this problem is difficult to address:

Holding Attention of an Autistic Child :

Some autistic kids find it difficult to pay attention to things which they do not find interesting but there are also situations when they are able to be attentive especially when they like the task.

Adapting new changes in their routine

Therapists and families find difficulty in grabbing attention of autistic children; frequently prefer rituals and routines and dislike change. This means that managing changes to daily routines may require assistance for your autistic child.

Repetitive Behavior

Repeated, pointless behaviors are a typical autism symptom. 1 The repetitive lining up of toys, the spinning of objects, or the opening and closing of drawers or doors are examples of such behaviors. Talking or enquiring about the same thing repeatedly is another example of repetitive behaviors.

Affinity Mapping

Using affinity mapping was important as we have a lot of data that we have gathered from observations and interviews. It was a great way to sort and organize data into groups of similar items. Our goal was to generate patterns and themes from the data. Whereas, An empathy map was important for ideating a user-centered solution. By including what target users do. hear, feel in the process, which will help us keep the actual users in mind through the design process.

Empathy Mapping

We created three different empathy maps for child,parents and another for therapist

User Personas

Getting closer to User Centered Design

According to our research, assistive technology can help higher functioning autistic children by bridging the gap between their world and ours and supporting them in their social lives.

We would like to propose a 2-way interactive technological intervention that facilitates them in their daily life & social activities and assists the therapists with their training. The following are the primary user needs for social skill development:

Ability to build a Conversation.

Ability to Identify social cues.

Ability to narrate a story, event or any incident cohesively.

Familiarize yourself with Daily Life Activities like shopping, banking, schooling etc.

Design Exploration

We planned to pursue the design direction of supporting high-level autistic kids for social interaction because these were the major pain points observed and identified among most of the high-functioning autistic students of age group 8- 14 years

we tried to reach out to different team members. We also reached out to unknown people and explained to them the challenges faced by autistic children and their pain points to get a very unbiased opinion and ideas. This helped us to understand different perspectives that people have. The third brainstorming session was more valuable as we got a sense of different perspectives. We were able to connect the dots and come up with new ideas that were very specific to making social interaction for high-functioning autism.

Three Design Alternatives to pursue further:

We plan to build an application to have an interface for autistic students to collaborate over a topic and problem statement to discuss
It’s a two-way interactive gaming application using speech recognition and speech synthesis that assists autistic children with social skill training by role-playing various daily life activities to familiarize them with how the physical world works.
Our third solution focuses on building an application for the children where they will get to be part of a storytelling group of their choice. The follow-up visual depiction would depend on the choices made while performing the task on the present screen.

Storyboarding :

This is a interactive gaming app that uses speech recognition and speech synthesis to stimulate daily life activities to familiarize the physical world experience as part of social skill training

Here, John is a high functioning autistic kid who is still not familiar with how the physical world works. Hence, as part of training for daily task activities, John is made to buy apples from a neighborhood shop simulated in the app.. Over time, John completes various levels against a backdrop of shopping with the incentive of receiving a reward for each victory. Her progress generated by the application is constantly reviewed by her parents and therapist. She therefore learns to perform all essential daily life activities required for independent living in future, boosting her confidence to face the physical world.

This is a story-telling app where autistic children role-play to be a part of various stories available in the app where based on the option chosen, the story plot unveils.

Joe is a high functioning autistic student who is undergoing social skill training for his current therapy. He finds an app where he gets to role-play stories of his choice which are depicted visually. As a story goes, when a wrong choice is made an AI Bot called ’buddy’ pops up guiding him in the right direction helping in decision-making. Joe chose a story about tending to friends at the time of emergency. Later in real life, due to the lesson learnt from the story, he was able to respond appropriately and help a wounded classmate.

It is impossible to treat or cure the disorder as a therapist or as a designer, but it is possible to build a tool to assist them in the therapy to ease their social life so that they can regain some sense of belonging and be capable of leading a routine life without assistance.

Prototyping & Evaluation

Wireframers

The design solution that we finally decided to move ahead with is a combination of the first and second solutions. In the first solution, the idea is to support students to interact with their peers in a team over a fun interactive interface and instill a spirit of teamwork within themselves.

The second idea focuses on creating a reward-based two-way interactive gaming application that uses speech recognition and speech synthesis which in turn will assist autistic children with social skill training by role-playing various daily life activities to familiarize them with how the physical world works.

This design solution addresses our design problem which is how we can support high-functioning autistic students in the area of social interaction and reduce the feeling of anxiety, stress, or social awkwardness like instances of communicating within a group, initiating a new conversation, or even making new friends.

Prototype Outcome

We created a low fidelity prototype using the Figma tool (digital method) after first developing the concept through sketching. Heuristic evaluation and think-aloud sessions were conducted with children and psychologists using this prototype. Given the fact that our target audience is highly receptive to small details like color, font type, and font size, which can be effectively portrayed on a digital platform, this strategy was employed.

Design Rationale

We have discovered via the study that there are many other considerations to keep in mind when designing for autistic children as they have repetitive behavior and are very adamant. They are obsessed with organized patterns and fixed routines.

To come up with a design solution we need to make sure to use subtle visuals but more visuals compared to text. Make the solution interactive for the students or people in general to be able to pay attention and do not get distracted easily.

Only autistic-friendly colours (Pastel colours) are used throughout the app to prevent trigger.

Gilroy

Visual Design

Onboarding

1. Home Screen

Features such as child progress level, collaborative forums, sharing hobbies, and practice sessions for maintaining eye contact added to the interactive gaming application which will help in assisting the problem.

2. Pair Interactions

The idea is to support students to interact with their peers in a team over a fun interactive interface and instill a spirit of teamwork within themselves.

The process of Pairing

3. Reward system
The reward system is pretty simple. if the child completes the scenario then he/she get to watch a cartoon for 30min

3. Reward system
This idea focuses on creating a reward-based two-way interactive gaming application that uses speech recognition and speech synthesis which in turn will assist autistic children with social skill training by role-playing various daily life activities to familiarize them with how the physical world works.

Testing and evaluation

Considering our users are very sensitive and may get triggered with any of our product elements, it was better to get our application evaluated from the people who are experts in collaborating and taking care of our users.

Findings 1

while performing the main task, the scenario-based characters did not seem to be providing a feel of real-life characters.

This can be inferred in a way to make our visuals in a 3D setup or we could incorporate AR/VR to give a real feel of the character.

Findings 2

One of the most important aspects of performing a task is being able to quit it whenever required and we missed having the exit option on one of our screens.

Putting up a back button on every screen would help user to control the action based on the previous screen.

Issues to address in longterm

With our evaluation, we can state that our application does require some additional consideration with respect to the therapist’s point of view.

1. This is because the therapist or the trainer would feed in the scenario for the students and thus it is important for us to come up with an interface which is compatible for both therapist and students to perform the task.

2. we will need to conduct a research which covers the requirements to be covered from the therapist point of view. As of now, the product is too soon to be deployed. Our team considers the project to be in the staging state as it requires some additional touch ups.

3. We would also like to incorporate the additional features that were covered in our research for the student interface. Those features include - privacy, maintaining eye contact and a separate portal for parents and therapists connected with children's accounts to monitor the role-play and record their progress .

My Learnings

1. Working in a Team : Since there was no team leader and everyone on the team was a student from a variety of backgrounds, reaching a consensus and working together within the team was the major learning experience.

2. Figuring out the problem: The most toughest part of the project was to figure out and narrow down to the exact problem, I learned to focus on one problem at a time to create the best solution.

Sahith Uppala

Supporting Autistic Students towards Social Interaction