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

People rely on online information for important life tasks such as managing personal finances and understanding medical symptoms. However, due to its intrinsically language-focused nature, online search poses considerable difficulties for people with language impairments. Currently these difficulties are poorly understood. We report findings from an observation of the information search behavior of 12 people with aphasia. We identify a wide range of difficulties and strategies aimed at combating them, spanning the entire information search process. Findings include previously unreported difficulties and strategies that highlight the importance of designing search technologies to better support the complex needs of people who find language challenging, such as by facilitating word finding cueing strategies, error prevention and recovery, browsing, appropriation, text interpretation and and by decreasing reliance on language competency in general. This has the potential not only to benefit searchers with language impairments, but to make information search easier for all.

About the speaker:

Stephann is an academic in the Centre for HCI design at City St. George’s, University of London, with research expertise in Human-Information Interaction. His research focuses on understanding how a diverse range of users find and use information on the Web, on social media and using generative AI tools.