When users struggle on the Web they employ extreme adaptations to tackle problematic situations, namely coping strategies. If we are able to automatically detect such situations we can provide the means to bypass or pre-empt them. However, isolating these coping strategies is a challenging task: coping occurs seldom and when it happens, coping is not always overtly manifested. Therefore, in order to identify the coping strategies employed by users in situ longitudinal observations have to be conducted, which are resource intensive. We propose a more economical method that transfers the coping strategies employed by groups of users that cope frequently and overtly, such as people with disabilities, to broader populations. To do so, we first identify the coping strategies employed by people with disabilities; then we code these strategies and convert them into coping detection algorithms that are injected into web pages. Remote longitudinal studies are run with broader populations to measure the detection rate of the algorithms. Based on participants’ feedback we iteratively modify the algorithms to adjust them to the coping strategies users employ. We illustrate this method with a case study that transfers the strategies employed by visually disabled users to able-bodied users. We discover that different populations do not only face the same problems, but also exhibit similar strategies to tackle them.

1. Considering People with Disabilities
as Überusers
for Eliciting Generalisable Coping Strategies
on the Web
Markel Vigo1 & Simon Harper2 University of Manchester (UK)
1: @markelvigo
2: @sharpic
ACM Web Science 2013
markel.vigo@manchester.ac.uk
simon.harper@manchester.ac.uk
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.695072

2. Coping
The cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage
demands that exceed the resources of a person.
Lazarus & Folkman, 1984
ACM Web Science 20132 May 2013 2

3. Problem
We do not know the coping strategies
employed on the Web
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4. Why is this important
If we are able to automatically detect coping
we can provide the means to overcome the
situation
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5. What do we propose
ACM Web Science 20132 May 2013
Transferring the identified strategies from
populations who cope more frequent and
overtly to general audiences
5

6. Why is it challenging
Coping occurs seldom
Once every 75 minutes.
Novick et al., 2007
112 minutes for sighted users
95 for visually impaired
Vigo and Harper, 2013
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7. Why is it costly
Significant amount of observations
in the wild are required
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8. What do we propose:
Step 1. Observation &
Identification of Strategies
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1. Observation

9. What do we propose:
Step 2. Implementation of
algorithms to detect
strategies
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1. Observation 2. Algorithms

10. ACM Web Science 20132 May 2013
What do we propose:
Step 3. Deployment in the wild
10
1. Observation 2. Algorithms 3. Deployment

11. What do we propose:
Step 4. Run user studies
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1. Observation 2. Algorithms 3. Deployment 4. User studies

12. What do we propose:
Refine algorithms
go to step 2
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1. Observation 2. Algorithms 3. Deployment 4. User studies

13. Case study
Step 1. Observation and analysis
• 2 independent studies/datasets generated
from ethnographic studies and user tests
• 24 screen reader and screen magnifier
users
• 17 coping strategies were identified
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14. Case study
Step 2. Implementation
- Retracing: users retrace the steps in a
sequence of pages.
- Re-checking: fast revisitations.
ACM Web Science 20132 May 2013 14

15. Case study
Step 3. Deployment
• Algorithms deployed in a Firefox add-on
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16. Case study
Step 4. User study
• 18 sighted participants, 10 days
• 126 retraces and 67 rechecks
• Tabbed browsing was interfering
• Feedback on false positives:
– “I’m browsing across tabs”
– “I’m comparing different web pages”
– “I’m navigating through different tabs”
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17. Case study
Refinement; then iterate.
Tab browsing breaks the interaction context
re-checking:
webpagei  wpj  wpi  wpj
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NON-TABBED NON-TABBED NON-TABBED

18. False positive rate (less is better)
ACM Web Science 20132 May 2013
study 1 study 20.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
study 1 study 20.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
Retracing Re-checking
18
• 2nd study: 20 sighted participants, 10 days
• 24 retraces, 16 rechecks

19. Conclusion
There is an overlap between the coping
strategies of different populations
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20. Follow up
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Contact
@markelvigo | markel.vigo@manchester.ac.uk
Presentation DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.695072
Source code
https://bitbucket.org/mvigo/cope
Datasets
http://wel-data.cs.manchester.ac.uk/studies/3