Learning about the usability of mobile applications

Abstract

Digital Humanities is an area of theoretical-practical studies committed to a perspective and an interdisciplinary methodology, informatics and humanistic, in the analysis of some social phenomena and problems. It is a discipline that has recently found space in the field of university education. Its teaching is of great interest because its objective is to offer knowledge to interpret the relevant social changes introduced by the new technologies. Naturally, the study of the social impact of technology can be carried out from different points of view. Today we think that some of the essential criteria for this type of analysis have to be the accessibility and usability of the new digital tools. For these reasons, we decided to prepare a seminar to discuss with the students, who attended, in their final year of their studies, this innovative university course (digital humanities), on the issue of accessibility, in general, and the usability, in particular, of mobile applications dedicated to people with disabilities and various diseases. Specifically, we have considered an application aimed at people with multiple sclerosis, used in different countries but outside the students, and we have worked on the usability of this application.