User-Centered Design of E-Learning Tools for Users with Special Needs: The VisualPedia Case Study

The design of multimedia systems in the e-learning context poses several challenges in term of developing usable and accessible applications. This paper presents a case study related to VisualPedia, a collaborative multimedia e-learning system, whose software lifecycle has followed a participatory design and the analysis of specific phenomena characterizing the HCI process. The goal of this work is to highlight that the adoption of these approaches from the early design phase will lead to make useful, usable and accessible multimedia interactive systems. Results are validated by showing some usability and accessibility analysis carried out in the context of the VisualPedia development process.