Visual Aids for Teaching Piano to Students with Autism: Designing a Web App Through Practice

This paper describes an accessible web app for mobile devices that serves as a support tool to teach students with autism the basics of music using a virtual piano keyboard. Within the app, learning material is presented in a gradual and structured way, in which each educational unit can be customized according to students' needs and preferences; for instance, visual and auditory aids aimed at special-needs learners can be deactivated over time to make the learning outcomes independent from them. In order to study and improve both the user and use contexts for the interface design and interaction mechanisms, we recruited seventeen adolescents with autism at two different stages of the app development cycle. By collecting a variety of interaction data, we refined design choices and iteratively evaluated accessibility, usability, and acceptability aspects of the app. Results of this process appear to confirm the feasibility of our approach while providing valuable observational data for other researchers working on similar solutions. In addition, this work further corroborates the positive role of technology in motivating adolescents with low- and medium-functioning autism in their learning, and highlights the potential of music as a learning object per se, and not only as a medium for mastering other skills.