Blind and Visually Impaired Users Adaptation to Web Environments: A Qualitative Study

Although much research exists on human behavior in online environments, research on users with disabilities is still rare. To draw more attention to this population, this dissertation explored browsing patterns and adaptive behaviors of people with visual disability across different online environments common in daily activities: social network, e-commerce, online information, and search engines’ websites. The main objective of this study is to propose a conceptual framework of how blind and visually impaired users browse and adapt to different web environments. We achieve this objective using a qualitative approach through three studies. In the first study, the researchers collect data by means of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six users with different levels of visual impairment. In the second study, we use survey questionnaires with open-ended questions to reach a larger sample of study participants. Finally, we conduct a follow-up observational study as means to confirm our results. Open, axial, and selective coding are used for data reduction and analysis as part of the grounded theory method