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Hey Aussie, can you read, do you know what you are signing up to?

December 31, 2010 By Chris Mundy Leave a Comment

Image of Computer Users

"Darling, do you know what you're signing us up to?"

Almost half Australians can’t read. This was the title of an article written by ABC news in 2008 on the status of Australians and their ability to read well.

One of the things about this article, regardless of past and current governments, education policies and programs, the fundamentals of teaching english and reading, is that many Australians still can’t read.

So if people have difficulties reading a street sign, a billboard, a flyer, or a newspaper, how do we expect people to read an online web page in a browser?

What about those little buttons called “Privacy Policy” that open up to a full 5 page spread of what they do with your privacy, does the user really understand it or will they even read it?

What about the button that says “accept” the terms and conditions.

As governments and business move to provide services on-line, there is a question that needs to be asked, “Will the users understand what they are being asked to do on-line”?

In 2006 I attended a presentation by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), Web Accessibility and Writing for the Web: Overview for Government. One of the guest speakers at the presentation was Dee Alexander, who at the time was a researcher and lecturer from Monash University on User Centred Design and Usability on Web.

Dee’s topic was titled, “Creating Quality Content: A goal-driven approach for the Web.” The talk focused on the importance of Web Content, and how writing for the Web is different from print media, how people interact with content online and how to write content that communicates clearly, is useful, usable and accessible.

Three points stuck out that raise concerns and potential challenges down the track for any online services being provided by organisations.

1. The Literacy Level of Users (How well can someone read)

The statement was made by Dee that 46% of Australians are below the line for literacy to cope with on-line content.

The ABS has a paper released in 1997 4228/0 Aspects of Literacy: Assessed Literacy Skills  that supports this comment, more so into General Literacy levels.http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4228.0Main+Features11996?OpenDocument

How many online users fit into this group?

2. Lower Literacy Users exhibit very different reading behaviours than Higher-Literacy Users

“Lower Literacy users plough the text rather than scan it, and they miss page elements due to a narrower field of view.”

This research comes from Jakob Nielson the leading authority in Usability Design. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050314.html

Nielson states in the same article…

  • Higher-literacy users scan text, lower literacy users don’t scan text
  • Lower-literacy users cant glance at lists they have to read each word carefully
  • This means that they skip over large amounts of information, obviously it becomes all too complicated for the lower-literacy users.
  • This means their visual concentration is lower

3. Scrolling can Cause Accessibility Problems

Jakob Nielson also stated in his Alertbox, March 14 2005 on Scrolling and Scrollbars:

  • People with Motor skill impairments find scrolling difficult
  • Low-literacy users can’t easily reacquire their position in the text after it moves.
  • Elderly people have trouble getting to the right spot in scrolling menus and other small scrollable items.

So what’s the big problem?

Here are the three issues:

  1. The Literacy Level of Users,
  2. Lower Literacy Users exhibit very different reading behaviours than Higher-Literacy Users,
  3. Scrolling can cause accessibility problems,

Well, if people have problems reading, then they will have difficulties using and reading online content on web sites. Putting these three items together, becomes a recipe for disaster.

Picture a possible scenarios that could occur;

  • A customer goes on-line to either join-up or change some details related to an online service
  • On the web page, it is expected that the Customer reviews the legalities if they do not comply with this point, if they do not comply it states a penalty will be imposed for their non-compliance.
  • The customer agrees by selecting the “I Accept” button, however due to the three points above does, the customer really doesn’t understand what they are accepting.
  • Later on, the customer does not comply with points stated on Web page and comes in breach of the on-line agreement.
  • After several letters of correspondence, several phone calls, a visit to the organisation, the customer attempts to clear up the matter. The Customer services officer explains why they were in breach of the agreement.
  • The customer states, “I didn’t understand what was written on the Web page, it was too hard and long for me to understand, so I just clicked the ”I Accept” Button.

Image of the Legal StuffThe question is, if they were a low-literacy user, did the customer really know what their obligations were when they signed up?

If the customer had submitted the form at a shopfront or a service centre environment, in most cases the Customer Services Officer would have spelt out clearly to the customer their obligations.

I’m not a legal person, however I wonder how the courts would respond to this situation?

I would suggest that this type of scenario be run across the legal team for advice, e.g., where does Organisation x stand if this type situation were to occur and it came to a legal challenge, and the customer didn’t know what they were signing up to?

No doubt the case can be made that the same thing could occur in a non-on-line environment with a person reading a form and filling it in at home and sending it through the mail.

Conclusion

I support organisational initiatives that provides customers with an environment to access services on-line, however they need to be sure that they get it right. How do they manage low-literacy users, are they considered when the screens are put together.

Usability is vital in the design and User Testing is vitally important for all on-line activities.

However the questions remains, do customers really understand all the on-line content they are reading and signing up to?

Chris

Hansel and Gretel where are you! – A lesson in breadcrumbs.

February 6, 2010 By Chris Mundy Leave a Comment

Remember the story of Hansel Gretel, they were misled into Forest by the evil step mother and a father (who needed a smack around the head) due to not having enough food to eat.

The step mother thought it would be more convenient to leave the children in the forest to die and save on the grocery bills. Hansel (the son) aware of the plan, leaves a trail of pebbles so they can get back home.

When the children get home, the wicked step mother locks them and the next day and get their loving father to do the same thing again. This occurs a couple of time till the step-mother ( I bet she was ugly) is cranky and locks the two kids up for the night with a loaf of bread and water.

The next night, the dad ( who really is confused, probably more interested in his own needs than his children) triess the same plan again; this time Hansel leaves a trail of bread-crumbs, however they are eaten by the birds of the forest and the two children finally are lost in the woods. it’s hard to believe that people read these stories to their children, it’s so sad.

The main thing about the breadcrumb was the route to get them out of the forest back to home.

With the introduction of the Intranet and Internet web design came up with the concept of the breadcrumb, a way to get back to where you started or find out where you are in a structure.

If you’re not familiar with a breadcrumb they can sometimes look like this,

Acme Widgets Homepage -> Widgets Types -> Blue Widgets

This translated means:

Company Homepage->Subject->Topic

In reality could be:

Company Homepage.html ->Subject 1.html->Topic Page.html

Each part of the breadcrumb can be linked to a page thus allowing you to navigate back to the homepage.

One organisation I worked used this structure to navigate its organisation.

Acme Co Homepage -> Organisational Unit -> Sub-Organisation Unit -> Topic

Ultimately the Home page led back to the CEO and each link led to a responsible person in the organisation, neat eh!

I’ve also seen another organisation where they used organisation unit pages as the end point of the breadcrumb and there was no breadcrumb to the pages that connected the organisation link

Acme Co Homepage -> Organisational Unit -> Sub-Organisation Unit ??

This was one of many navigational challenges they had. As you can appreciate, this organisation had a low commitment of use to the Intranet.

So what’s the point of this conversation?

It’s so important to provide adequate navigational tools if you want to allows people to navigate a website and not leave it. Some sites provide adequate navigation which means they don’t need breadcrumbs. Their page name, their URL all lead to meaningful navigation.

Whatever navigation you use, make sure it’s clear, meaningful and concise. If you use Breadcrumbs, ensure that all the names in the breadcrumbs link to a page. That way you have traceability back across the site. For more reading go to useit.com

I hope you find this useful.

Chris

Navigation: Left hand menus, right hand menus, or both?

February 6, 2010 By Chris Mundy Leave a Comment

Image of Johannes GutenburgJohannes Gutenberg… is one of my hero’s I discovered when I was studying church history in a theological course.

I had to do an assignment of my own making on the reformation. I found it hard finding one thing I could focus on. Would I research Martin Luther, (I love the bit where he discovered from the Bible that the just shall live by faith not by good works), or I could have done John Knox, that fiery Scottish Preacher or the effect of the reformation on Switzerland by John Calvin.

Other students choose their favourite subjects, but I had problems choosing what I wanted to do. My lecturer said “try and do something you can relate to”.

Prior to college I had spent by that time around 9 years in engineering, in particular manufacturing. Our company at the time was making production line equipment for car manufacturers. Gutenberg was the obvious choice, he invented a specialised piece of equipment, the mechanical printing press. Little did I realise then on how much impact that would have on study of usability some 15 years later.

Going back to 1439, up till that time most things were hand written.

At the time, this meant that there was an aristocracy on who was taught to read and write. People who usually read in those times were dignitaries, nobles and religious leaders. You can imagine that information could easily be manipulated for all the wrong reasons.

With the advent of Gutenberg’s mechanical printing press, formalisation of fonts and styles, and layout started to become standardised. One of the standardisations that occurred was the way you read a document, from left to right. Undoubtable that was how people were already  reading.

The upshot of this in the West is this; for over 500 years people have been reading documents from left to right.

It was logical then for the advent of the web to ensure that you read it from left to right. Others tried it however they soon found it didn’t work.

Having a left hand navigationmenu was a logical place for menu to go on the screen. It provided context for the user. In absence of a left hand menu you could have a right hand menu. That worked as long as it was the only menu.

So what happens when you have both? Do you mean to say that some places have two navigation menus, one on the left, the other on the right? Yes, it does happen. So what is the result? Your brain gets a little confused.

Try this exercise…..

Place your index finger on your nose then move you finger to the left. What happens, both eyes follow the finger. Move it to the right and your eyes will follow it to the right.

Move your finger away from you and in most cases your eyes will follow it and you will get a cross-eyed effect.

So what does this all mean?

Your eyes will either focus on the left, the right or centre wherever you your finger is. Some people can make each eye focus in different directions, these are special people, they are the minority.

So, if you have a left hand navigation and right hand navigation what do think is going to happen? The majority of people will gravitate to left hand side of the screen; if there is no left hand screen they will navigate to either to next dominant point either the right hand screen or near the header wherever the menu is placed.

Never a left hand or a right hand menu on the same screen as confusion will remain supreme.

The only exception to this is if you use the right hand menu for special activities, where a person many have to perform a work function that completes the activity on the page, closes off the work flow of the page. Examples of this are thing such as short messages, depending on the site advertisements, quick shortcuts and status.

Anyway, you may not agree, however I hope I’ve given you something to think about.

For further information check out Jakob Nielson’s comments on horizontal attention.

Chris

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