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IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010through various subtests that offer independent evidences for internal checking, as well as cross-validation ofconclusions and findings associated to the test. Fourthly, quality, completion and precision evaluation criteriaare used. Finally, errors are induced by distractions, in order to characterize the nature of the cognitiveprocessing underlying the student’s reading and writing in Portuguese.2.2 The Four Tests selected for Our PrototypeAs already mentioned above, we selected four out of eleven tests to make up our prototype. Here is adescription of these tests.The TVRSL, or Test of the Visual Receptive Vocabulary of Libras Signs(Capovilla, 2004), was elaborated and validated according to the results of a study carried out in differentyears of both primary and secondary education. The test assesses the students’ ability to understand isolatedLibras signs performed live. In fact, it assesses the level of development of their chimerical lexicon, i.e. theirset of Libras signs. This knowledge allows the deaf person to understand, express and process informationthrough sign language. The TCLS, or Test of Sentence Reading Competence (Capovilla, 2005), assesses thestudents’ ability to read sentences and texts, and to present their meanings by choosing the right pictureamongst distracting pictures. The TNF-Choice, or Test of Picture Naming by Choice, assesses theexaminees’ ability to choose the correct written name of 36 pictures from sets of four alternatives.3. CHALLENGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECTOnce we had analyzed these four tests, we then moved on to the transposition of the tasks from a physical,concrete space into a virtual environment. Our main aim at this point was not to interfere with intrinsicfeatures of each test; in other words, we strived to keep all variables that characterize each test unaltered.During the mapping process of both the real and the virtual spaces, we tried to come up with adequatetechnical ways of displaying the tests (static aspects) and enabling the computational interaction, so as toensure their user-friendliness (dynamic aspects).In addition to the abovementioned difficulty, another aspect of the project was particularly challenging forus, namely the technology employed. Our objective was to introduce a tool capable of providing possibilitiesinexistent in the real process (Winograd and Flores, 1986). Amongst these innovative possibilities are, forinstance, the simultaneous follow-up of every individual test being taken in the lab – the examiner can checkon which question a given student is working and how much time there is left for him/her, for example.Another innovative possibility is real-time conversation amongst all examiners giving similar tests in any ofthe schools registered in the server. This last advance is particularly useful for when examiners want todiscuss eventual questions or unpredicted situations that may have arisen (Figure 1).Figure 1. Test follow-up screen.Another innovative possibility we introduced so as to illustrate the potential of this tool (but which iseasily reversible) is the animation of the expressions in Libras in the TVRSL (Figure 2). This interventionwas inspired in the concepts of semantic and articulatory distance devised by Norman (1986), a classic authorin the area of Human-Computer Interaction. Even though the original sequence of pictures indicates themovement through arrows, thus making the meaning (semantic) susceptible to the user’s interpretation, thereis a significant distance between the expression (articulation) and the movement, a problem which ouranimation tool solves. Nevertheless, we feel that before adopting this solution, one must thoroughly revise351