A Contextual Help Browser Extension to Assist Digital Illiterate Internet Users
Organizations: School of Science and Computing, South East Technological University, Ireland
Abstract
This paper describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a browser extension that provides contextual help to users who hover over technological acronyms and abbreviations on web pages. The extension combines a curated technical dictionary with OpenAI's large language model (LLM) to deliver on-demand definitions through lightweight tooltip overlays. A dual-layer artificial intelligence (AI) pipeline, comprising Google Cloud's Natural Language Processing (NLP) taxonomy API and OpenAI's ChatGPT, classifies each visited page as technology-related before activating the tooltip logic, thereby reducing false-positive detections. A mixed-methods study with 25 participants evaluated the tool's effect on reading comprehension and information-retrieval time among users with low to intermediate digital literacy. Results show that 92% of participants reported improved understanding of technical terms, 96% confirmed time savings over manual web searches, and all participants found the tooltips non-disruptive. Dictionary-based definitions were appended in an average of 2135 ms, compared to 16429 ms for AI-generated definitions and a mean manual search time of 17200 ms per acronym. The work demonstrates a practical, real-time approach to bridging the digital literacy gap and points toward extending contextual help to other domains such as medicine, law, and finance.
Figures & tables
| Statistic | Value (seconds) |
|---|---|
| (valid) | 25 |
| Mean | 17.20 |
| Median | 16.00 |
| Std. deviation | 4.72 |
| Minimum | 12.00 |
| Maximum | 34.00 |
| Method | Mean | Median | SD | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dictionary | 2,135 | 2,116 | 178 | 1,907 | 2,421 |
| OpenAI GPT | 16,429 | 16,431 | 3,578 | 10,568 | 22,473 |
| Manual (Google) | 17,200 | 16,000 | 4,717 | 12,000 | 34,000 |