Summary and Prejudice: Online Reading Preferences of Users with Intellectual Disability

People with intellectual disability (ID) deserve appropriate access to information online. A vast amount of information on the Internet is written text in the form of articles, and it is often said that summarising these texts could enhance their accessibility. This qualitative research investigates how people with ID prefer to gather information from articles, either in their original form or automatically summarised. The researchers observed the choices and strategies of 10 participants with ID through the reading process, and conducted contextual interviews to understand their preferences, attitudes and the difficulties they faced. The study found that the length of the article is only secondary to the relevance of the article to the person's interests. Summarised articles were found easier to read and having familiar words and images to supplement the text can help people with intellectual disability understand what an article is about.