Do Web Users with Autism Experience Barriers When Searching for Information Within Web Pages?

Abstract

Elements related to cognitive disability are given lower priority in web accessibility guidelines due to limited understanding of the requirements of neurodiverse web users. Meanwhile, eye tracking has received a lot of interest in the accessibility community as a way to understand user behaviours. In this study, we combine results from information location tasks and eye tracking data to find out whether users with high-functioning autism experience barriers while using the web compared to users without autism. Our results show that such barriers exist and there is higher variance in the scanpaths of the participants with high-functioning autism while searching for the right answer within web pages.