Launch Site

WHY

As a dyslexic myself, I have always struggled in school, unaware why I wasn’t able to perform as well as my classmates. It was not until 10th grade of high school that I was diagnosed with dyslexia. So, in order to combat these statistics and spark thought and conversation about dyslexia...I created an interactive web project featuring an educational experience meant to teach executives in education about the struggles that dyslexic children face in school.

GOAL

My goal for the site was to create intentional frustration for the users making them spend the same amount of time and effort on a task as a dyslexic student would while also educating them on dyslexic perception.

WHAT

It is a linear sequence of explanations and exercises that show the way the mind of a dyslexic works. Each exercise has two versions adjacent to each other. The normal version reinforces the simplicity of the task while the dyslexic version uses animation and interaction to communicate the difficulty that dyslexics face while learning how to read and write. From the exercises you learn about why certain tasks that are employed in schools are difficult for dyslexics. Through the experience users understand the level of frustration and helplessness in completing these tasks at a normal pace. It emphasizes how our education system has neglected to meet the needs of dyslexics, which make up almost twenty percent of the population. By neglecting the dyslexic population in our education system, we are missing out on some of the greatest minds of our time. Schools must empower young dyslexics to reveal their potential.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

Through this process I learned about how much the life of a dyslexic person can vary based on their educational experience and their own perspective on what it means to be dyslexic. So, I ask executives in education, “How can we improve the American education system in order to better prepare dyslexic students for their future and remedy the unjust consequences created by the system’s neglect of dyslexic students?”

THE PROCESS:

Interactive Design:

AdobeInDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, HTML, CSS, jQuery

TOPIC RESEARCH, COLLECTION, CURATION AND NOTES

My research began with watching TED talks and reading about dyslexia. I focused on how dyslexia presents in children throughout their progression in education as well as more concrete information on the mechanics of dyslexic perception.

STRUCTURE DESIGN

I was working with three main sections:
    1. Exercises with an interactive component
    2. Mechanics of dyslexic perception
    3. Dyslexic childrens' future when they are neglected vs. empowered

VISUAL DESIGN: COLOR AND TYPOGRAPHY

COLOR:
I have always associated blue with education and english class, color coding all of my notebooks and folders. Orange is a color that resembles stress and vibrates with blue. This vibration is meant to cause eye strain for the user to further emphasize the difficulty dyslexics face when reading.

TYPOGRAPHY:
The typeface on the exercises, Varela Round, was inspired by worksheets in early education that use rounded san serif typefaces. AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
Lato, used for the rest of the site, is sleek and elegant with semi-rounded details of the letterforms. Its rounded details draw connections with Varela Round, while its strong structure provides a stability to invoke the serious matter of the topic._A
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz

PAGE LAYOUT THUMBNAILS AND EXPLORATION

Exploration of vaious methods of organizing the page layout for the exercises.

INITIAL COMPLETE DESIGN DECK

BUILD

Following the revised design deck, I began building the site, while continuing to refine the design and interaction.

FIND THE COMPLETED SITE HERE: