Can search result summaries enhance the web search efficiency and experiences of the visually impaired users?

Aboubakr Aqle*, Dena Al-Thani, Ali Jaoua

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

There are limited studies that are addressing the challenges of visually impaired (VI) users when viewing search results on a search engine interface by using a screen reader. This study investigates the effect of providing an overview of search results to VI users. We present a novel interactive search engine interface called InteractSE to support VI users during the results exploration stage in order to improve their interactive experience and web search efficiency. An overview of the search results is generated using an unsupervised machine learning approach to present the discovered concepts via a formal concept analysis that is domain-independent. These concepts are arranged in a multi-level tree following a hierarchical order and covering all retrieved documents that share maximal features. The InteractSE interface was evaluated by 16 legally blind users and compared with the Google search engine interface for complex search tasks. The evaluation results were obtained based on both quantitative (as task completion time) and qualitative (as participants’ feedback) measures. These results are promising and indicate that InteractSE enhances the search efficiency and consequently advances user experience. Our observations and analysis of the user interactions and feedback yielded design suggestions to support VI users when exploring and interacting with search results.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)171-192
Number of pages22
JournalUniversal Access in the Information Society
Volume21
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2022

Keywords

  • Interface evaluation
  • Search engine interface
  • Search result summarization
  • Usability
  • User interaction
  • Visually impaired users
  • Web accessibility

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