Mobile-Based Online Learning Application for Children with Special Needs Using Design Thinking Framework

Many educational institutions in Indonesia have implemented online learning as one of teaching methods. In contrast to regular students, who can adapt to online learning more easily, children with special needs require additional support or facility to effectively engage with online learning. Unfortunately, not all the facilities provided for online learning are suitable for children with special needs. This is because the features of online media are not always designed to meet their unique requirements. To address this issue, this research aims to design an online learning application specifically for children with special needs. The name of the application is “Together Learning (Tole)”. The research employs the design thinking framework which mainly consists of five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and testing. Additionally, user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) analyses are conducted to understand user preferences. To evaluate the proposed prototype a usability test by using the system usability score (SUS) questionnaire is administered. The result shows that the median score of 71.25 indicates a ranking of C (good). This research provides a foundation for the further development of the Tole application.