Development of an Answer Verification System for Helping Visually Impaired People to Learn a Spreadsheet Software

Abstract

We have developed an answer verification system for helping visually impaired people who are learning how to use a spreadsheet software by answering problem-solving exercises. Visually impaired learners have difficulty in verifying their answers on their own with conventional software tools. Hence, the answer verification system is designed to provide feedback to the learners with respect to the numbers of errors in their answers, the error locations, and the reasons behind the errors. The messages output from our system can be read out by a screen reader, and our system can treat various kinds of problem-solving exercises of a spreadsheet software. We conducted an evaluation study of our system both with the teachers and the students to assess its usability and functionality. Based on the results of this study, we generated an improved version of our system, which is also described here.