SearchPath: A Visual Reminder of Past Search Activity to Support Students with Dyslexia when Undertaking Exploratory Searches

Students often face complex academic search tasks, which cannot be resolved with a single query and selecting among the top few search results, or a single answer provided by a generative AI interface. Exploratory search process have been proposed as a useful framework for enabling searchers to undertake complex search tasks. In recent years, a variety of interfaces have been developed to support such searching. While such approaches generally focus on enabling searchers to make sense of what has been found and supporting them in managing their search activities, an underlying assumption is that searchers have good reading skills, working memory, and attention. However, these assumptions do not hold for all users; there can be a wide range of neurodiversity among students with respect to these important cognitive functions. Some searchers, such as those with dyslexia, need more support in some or all of these aspects than academic search interfaces offer. Taking inspiration from prior research on multi-workspace search environments, visually representing histories of past search activities, tag-based approaches to saving search results, interactive mechanisms for filtering what has been saved, and accessibility, we have developed a novel approach we call SearchPath. Herein we explain the key features of SearchPath, highlighting how they have been chosen and fine-tuned to serve as interactive memory aids that can help students with dyslexia to maintain orientation during their search journey.