To Infinity and Beyond! Accessibility is the Future for Kids' Search Engines

Abstract

Research in the area of search engines for children remains in its infancy. Seminal works have studied how children use mainstream search engines, as well as how to design and evaluate custom search engines explicitly for children. These works, however, tend to take a one-size-fits-all view, treating children as a unit. Nevertheless, even at the same age, children are known to possess and exhibit different capabilities. These differences affect how children access and use search engines. To better serve children, in this vision paper, we spotlight accessibility and discuss why current research on children and search engines does not, but should, focus on this significant matter. CCS Concepts: • Social and professional topics → Children; • Human-centered computing → Accessibility; • Information systems → Web searching and information discovery.

Using Conversational Artificial Intelligence to Support Children's Search in the Classroom

“…It is also worth mentioning that taking a one-size-fits-all approach to designing CUIs for children is not necessarily possible, as children possess varying capabilities depending on age and understanding [28]. Furthermore, children are not the only stakeholders when it comes to classroom activities and tools [30,29].…”