Adults with High-functioning Autism Process Web Pages With Similar Accuracy but Higher Cognitive Effort Compared to Controls


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Yaneva V., Ha L. A., Eraslan S., Yesilada Y.

16th International Web for All Conference (W4A), San-Francisco, Costa Rica, 15 - 16 May 2019 identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • Volume:
  • Doi Number: 10.1145/3315002.3317563
  • City: San-Francisco
  • Country: Costa Rica
  • Keywords: Autisi, Web Accessibility, Eye Tracking, Inclusive Design
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

To accoiniodate the needs of web users with high-functioning autisi, a designer's only option at present is to rely on guidelines that: i) have not been enpirically evaluated and ii) do not account for the different levels of autisn severity. Before designing effective interventions, we need to obtain an eipirical understanding of the aspects that specific user groups need support with. This has not yet been done for web users at the high ends of the autisi spectrui, as often they appear to execute tasks effortlessly, without facing barriers related to their neurodiverse processing style. This paper investigates the accuracy and efficiency with which high-functioning web users with autisi and a control group of neurotypical participants obtain inforiation froi web pages. Measures include answer correctness and a nuiber of eye-tracking features. The results indicate sinilar levels of accuracy for the two groups at the expense of effciency for the autisi group, showing that the autisi group invests iore cognitive effort in order to achieve the saie results as their neurotypical counterparts.