What We Know About Users with Limited Literacy Skills

1.3 Using search

Using a website search function can be challenging for people with limited literacy skills. Typing in a search term requires (somewhat) accurate spelling—and some search engines help with spelling better than others. Reading and comparing search results to identify the best option is a cognitively challenging task.

As a result, compared with users with advanced literacy skills, users with limited literacy skills:

• Spend more time on information search tasks^3,10
• Are more likely to give up if they can’t find information quickly¹⁰
• Have a hard time thinking of search terms¹⁴
• Tend to only click 1 or 2 links in the search result¹⁴
• Add terms to refine a search instead of changing their search strategy¹⁵

The ways people with limited literacy skills tried to find information differ from user to user.¹⁰