Prospecting an Inclusive Search Mechanism for Social Network Services

Inclusive Social Network Services (ISN) represent an opportunity for ordinary people to access information and knowledge through the Web. Such systems should provide access for all, creating situations where users' diversity is respected and the access difficulties are minimized. The use of search mechanisms has been the main way to find information in the Web. However, such mechanisms are still built through lexical-syntactical processing resulting in barriers for many users to reach correct and valuable information. In ISN all people must have the possibility of recovering information that makes sense to them. For that, search engines in ISN should take into account the meanings created, shared and used by people through the use of the system. In this paper we prospect an inclusive search mechanism for ISN grounded in Semantic Web technologies combined with Organizational Semiotics concepts and methods. The conception of the proposed solution is based on experimental results that point out how to improve search mechanisms considering aspects related to social and digital inclusion. Such proposal aims to address and promote the participatory and universal access to knowledge.