“I cannot find the words, it's broken”: The impact of aphasia on information searching

Abstract

Information searching requires many cognitive abilities, such as word mobilization to express information needs, spelling skills to input queries and reading proficiency to evaluate results. For people with aphasia, all these skills are impaired to some degree. This paper addresses how people with aphasia search for information. Data was collected through interviews and observations of participants while conducting searches. People with aphasia experienced many barriers during information searching. The main concern was identifying proper query words, but also spelling and reading were cumbersome. A variety of strategies were applied to compensate for impaired word mobilization with an aim to identify words to formulate queries, e.g., searching for images or browsing. Another approach was submitting queries describing the concept or searching for related topics to retrieve results that contained potential query terms. The findings may have implications for the development of more inclusive search systems. The study can provide a better understanding of how to enable people with aphasia to conduct basic information searching tasks unassisted. The study also confirms the need for participatory design involving diverse users, including people who have difficulties expressing own needs.