The mission of Surpass is to ‘improve the assessment experience for everyone’, and the Surpass team take a proactive approach to continuously researching and innovating in order to create the best possible testing experience with Surpass.
People all have different needs, and the Surpass Accessibility team, led by Andy Varley, focusses on ensuring Surpass meets current WCAG guidelines and is as accessible and inclusive as possible, in particular removing barriers for people with disabilities which may mean they need extra support when navigating an on-screen test.
The Surpass User Research team, led by Kat Owens, regularly speaks with and conducts research with real Surpass users in order to gain understanding and real-world data on how users interact with the assessment platform and test delivery engine.
Kat recently teamed up with Andy for the first of many projects, to carry out some research on the impact different fonts have on people diagnosed with dyslexia, a condition which according to research affects 10% of the UK population* (although as the condition can go undiagnosed is likely to actually be around 20%).
The research gathered data on the experience of users when presented with a document written in a font specifically designed to help people with dyslexia (Open Dyslexic), to the more familiar font, Georgia. Participants included people diagnosed with dyslexia, with an eyesight impairment, and a ‘control’ subject with neither condition.
Read the research report in full, and join us for a webinar on 16th March to discover:
- The importance of an inclusive testing experience
- Experiences of people diagnosed with dyslexia, and how this has affected their general learning experience
- How the team approached data gathering
- How the OpenDyslexic font, specifically designed to ease difficulties associated with dyslexia, compared with the Georgia font
- The impact font, and the way a text documented is presented, can have on people with dyslexia
Kat and Andy will be discussing the topic of UX Research and Inclusion further during their ‘Peas in a Pod’ session at the ATP conference. To join this session, register for the ATP conference here.
You can also hear from Kat and Andy in a Surpass Community webinar where they discuss research methods and the potential impact of this particular piece of research.
