You Shall Know a Forum by the Words they Keep: Analyzing Language Use in Accessibility Forums for Blind Users

Abstract

Discussion forums are one of the favored platforms for knowledge sharing. Given their popularity, copious research exists on understanding linguistic and behavioral characteristics of forum conversations. However, prior investigations have mainly focused on general forums designed primarily for sighted users, and as such the applicability of their findings to the dedicated accessibility discussion forums frequented by blind individuals remains unanswered. To bridge this knowledge gap, and facilitate the development of better-informed assistive technologies for blind people, we investigated language use and identified the key semantic and cognitive characteristics of online accessibility forums. To aid our investigation, we collected a dataset of 1000 accessibility forum threads and a baseline of 1000 general forum threads. These threads were carefully curated to ensure similarity of topics discussed. We found the language in accessibility forum conversations to be more task-oriented and less abstract, with significantly higher number of descriptive action words than in general forum conversations. Results also showed an emphasis on sharing first-hand personal experiences in accessibility forums, relative to the general forums.

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