"The Internet is Hard. Is Words": Investigating Information Search Difficulties Experienced by People with Aphasia and Strategies for Combatting Them

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • Due to the language-dominant nature of online search, users with language impairments (e.g., individuals with aphasia) face significant difficulties in understanding search needs, formulating queries, and evaluating results.
  • There is limited research on the search difficulties and coping strategies experienced by individuals with aphasia, particularly regarding search steps beyond the query formulation stage.

• Importance of the Problem:

  • Search technologies are critical tools for many people to handle important life tasks, such as managing personal finances or understanding health symptoms. Inability to search effectively can lead to reduced information quality and negatively impact decision-making.
  • The high prevalence of aphasia (e.g., nearly 2 million people in the U.S. are affected) underscores the urgency of providing accessible technologies to prevent digital exclusion.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • This study aims to fill the research gap regarding the information search behaviors of individuals with aphasia, exploring the difficulties and coping strategies they encounter throughout the search process.
  • Previous studies have focused on the linguistic demands of search but lack detailed exploration of the challenges faced by individuals with aphasia in evaluating search results, understanding web pages, and interpreting documents.

Proposed Solution

• Proposed Solution:

  • Conduct an empirical observational study analyzing the online search behaviors of 12 participants with mild to moderate aphasia.
  • Classify the entire search process into four main stages: understanding information needs, formulating queries, evaluating search results, and interpreting web pages and documents.

• Innovative Aspects:

  • Unlike traditional research, which often focuses on query formulation, this study comprehensively examines the entire information search process, systematically revealing specific challenges and strategies in other stages (e.g., result evaluation, webpage interpretation).
  • Employs specially optimized user research methods (e.g., minimizing linguistic burden, using aphasia-friendly research materials) to overcome limitations of traditional methods that may pose challenges for individuals with aphasia.

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  • Design two search tasks: a prescribed task (searching for information about heroic deeds) and a self-selected task (participants choose a topic of personal interest).
  • Use think-aloud observation and qualitative thematic analysis to code participants' behaviors in detail. Extract key interactions from screen recording data while documenting participants' quantitative self-assessments.
  • Collect data on task views, search frequency, and device usage, employing intervention-based exploration during search tasks to identify problem-solving approaches.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:

  • Identified a range of language-related difficulties encountered by participants with aphasia during the search process, including understanding information needs, word-finding (anomia), query formulation, spelling difficulties, evaluating search results, and interpreting webpage content.
  • Recognized coping strategies such as repeating or rephrasing task-related words, leveraging domain knowledge to find semantically related terms, relying on autocomplete functions, self-prompting, and using faceted navigation.

• Advantages Compared to Existing Solutions:

  • Unlike prior research that primarily focused on the query formulation stage, this study delves into post-query search steps (e.g., result evaluation and webpage interpretation), offering a more comprehensive perspective.
  • Provides design insights to rethink how to develop more inclusive search technologies for users with complex linguistic needs, aiming to reduce language dependency.

• Experimental Results:

  • Participants were generally satisfied with search results (median rating of 4/5) but explicitly reported significant difficulties during the search process (median rating of 4/5). Challenges in evaluating the usefulness of search results were particularly pronounced (median rating of 5).
  • Through qualitative analysis, quantified the difficulties and their causes encountered at each search stage (understanding needs, query formulation, result evaluation, content interpretation).

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limited to participants with mild to moderate aphasia, excluding those with severe language impairments or other language disorders.
  • Did not explore group dynamics (e.g., collaborative search) or the potential benefits of generative AI tools in supporting search.
  • Future work includes integrating generative AI for language prompts and studying the behavior of individuals with aphasia in multitasking or collaborative search scenarios.

The above analysis summarizes the challenges and coping strategies of individuals with aphasia in online information search. These findings contribute to the broader design of inclusive technologies to mitigate the impact of language barriers on users.