UX@UA Meetup: User Experience and L2 Adult Emergent Readers

Join us for our April meetup, where we'll discuss inclusive UX design, in particular for refugee and immigrant populations. People at all levels of experience are welcome!

Jenna Altherr Flores, UA doctoral candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, will present "User experience and L2 adult emergent readers: research-based recommendations for designing print and multimodal materials." This session will detail the results of research concerning how L2 adult emergent readers from refugee backgrounds and non-Western cultures make meaning and understand multimodal texts. As L2 adult emergent readers, this population is becoming literate while simultaneously learning a second language; thus their emerging literacy is manifesting in the language that they are learning. Most L2 adult emergent readers come from refugee or immigrant backgrounds, and have had limited or interrupted schooling. As they are resettled in highly-literate countries where print and multimodal literacy is necessary for integration, education, access to services, and other pragmatic reasons, it is important for service providers and materials designers to know how this population understands multimodal texts. The research focuses on still image, writing, and layout in assessment materials in learning environments, but the implications are far-reaching. The presentation will also cover ideologies and assumptions of print and visual literacy as seen in both classroom assessment materials, and the semiotic landscape of institutions that serve refugee-background adults.