Bypassing lists: accelerating screen-reader fact-finding with guided tours

Navigating back and forth from a list of links (index) to its target pages is common on the web, but tethers screen-reader users to unnecessary cognitive and mechanical steps. This problem worsens when indexes lack information scent: cues that enable users to select a link with confidence during fact-finding. This paper investigates how blind users who navigate the web with screen-readers can bypass a scentless index with guided tours: a much simpler browsing pattern that linearly concatenates items of a collection. In a controlled study (N=11) at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI), guided tours lowered user's cognitive effort and significantly decreased time-on-task and number of pages visited when compared to an index with poor information scent. Our findings suggest that designers can supplement indexes with guided tours to benefit screen-reader users in a variety of web navigation contexts.