A Preparatory Study for Designing Web-Based Educational Materials for the Hearing-Impaired

Our aim is to design web-based interactive educational materials for the hearing-impaired based on their interaction style. We describe the results of an eye-tracking experiment that demonstrates behavioral differences between hearing-impaired and hearing persons when using web-based materials. We found that the hearing-impaired exhibited a smaller strategic scan pattern, and shallower and more intuitive text processing. These findings suggest that the design of web-based educational materials, which currently only consider textual or image substitutes for auditory information, is insufficient for the hearing-impaired.