While people familiar with the field of Information Technology (IT) are able to understand new terms by associating them with previous knowledge or current context, those outside the industry struggle with new words and acronyms as they read dense technical documents. In these circumstances, people often rely on free resources like Wikipedia, but results often require disambiguation or a deeper search in order to find the appropriate definition for a term. Additionally, switching attention between reading and searching has been shown to increase cognitive load and perceived stress level, while reducing the effectiveness of both tasks.

To address this problem, we created D//Jargonizer: an extension for the Google Chrome web browser that allows users to define technical terms in context with minimal distraction. When users right click a word on a web page, a brief version of the term’s Wikipedia entry is displayed in context. After testing our prototype with several individuals, we refined our initial design to deliver a seamless user experience. By limiting the need for rapid attention switching between windows or tabs, our solution reduces cognitive load and improves the overall user experience as people read jargon-heavy documents.