Preliminary Evaluation of Interactive Search Engine Interface for Visually Impaired Users

Abstract

This work designs, evaluates, and improves a proposed search engine interface for Visually Impaired (VI) users to efficiently perform web search activities. Our conceptual modeling technique is based on Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) that is used for data analysis. This approach highlights the hierarchized approach to represent the discovered concepts. It is combined with context interactive navigation in an interface which is called interactive search engine (InteractSE). This interface aims to reduce the time and effort required by the VI users to browse search results. InteractSE was evaluated by experts using Nielsen's heuristics and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 for its usability and accessibility. The analysis was carried out based on the usability problems identified and their average severity ratings. The results show that the most frequently violated heuristics from Nielsen's set are consistency, documentation, and the average severity rating of all the problems is minor. The results also show that the most frequently violated WCAG 2.0 guidelines are distinguishable, followed by navigable and affordance. The average severity rating of all the problems found using WCAG 2.0 guidelines is also minor. The results show that Nielsen's heuristics and WCAG 2.0 guidelines contributed to identifying several usability problems, which might have missed out if either of them was used alone.

Keywords

• Visually impaired people
• accessibility guidelines
• heuristic evaluation
• human–computer interaction
• expert-user evaluation
• search application