Participants
The participants were 51 experienced internet users recruited by Sun (average level of Web experience was a couple of years). Participants ranged in age from 22-69 (average age was 41). In an attempt to give attention to “normal users,” we excluded the following professions from the study: webmasters, web-site designers, graphic designers, graphical user interface professionals, writers, editors, computer scientists, and computer programmers.
We checked for effects of age and Web experience regarding the dependent variables mentioned in the 1st five hypotheses, but we found only negligible differences-none significant. Had the websites within our study been more difficult to navigate or had our tasks necessitated use of search engines or any other Web infrastructure, we would have expected significant effects of both age and Web experience.
The experiment employed a 5-condition (promotional control, scannable, concise, objective, or combined) between-subjects design. Conditions were balanced for gender and employment status.
Experimental Materials
Called “Travel Nebraska,” the website contained information about Nebraska. We used a travel site because 1) within our earlier qualitative studies, many internet users said travel is one of their interests, and 2) travel content lent itself to the writing that is different we desired to study. We chose Nebraska to attenuate the end result of prior knowledge on our measures (in recruiting participants, we screened out individuals who had ever lived in, if not near, Nebraska).
Each type of the Travel Nebraska site consisted of seven pages, and all versions used the same hypertext structure. Making sure that participants would focus on text and not be distracted, we used hypertext that is modestwith no links beyond your site) and included only three photos and another illustration. There was no animation. Topics included in the site were Nebraska’s history, geography, population, tourist attractions, and economy. The Appendix to the paper shows components of an example page from each condition.
The control form of your website had a promotional form of writing (for example., “marketese,”), which contained exaggeration, subjective claims, and boasting, rather than just simple facts. This style is characteristic of many pages on the internet today.
The concise version had a promotional writing style, but its text was much shorter. Certain less-important information was cut, bringing the word count for every page to about 50 % that of the corresponding page when you look at the control version. A number of the writing in this version was at the inverted style that is pyramid. However, all information users necessary to perform the desired tasks was presented in the same order in all versions for the site.
The version that is scannable contained marketese, nonetheless it was written to encourage scanning, or skimming, associated with the text for information of great interest. This version used bulleted lists, boldface text to highlight keywords, photo captions, shorter sections of text, and more headings.
The version that is objective stripped of marketese. It presented information without exaggeration, subjective claims, or boasting.
The combined version had shorter word count, was marked up for scannability, and was stripped of marketese.
The participant signed a videotape consent form, then was told he or she would visit a website, perform tasks, and answer several questions upon arrival at the usability lab.
After making certain the participant knew how to utilize the browser, the experimenter explained that he would observe through the room next door towards the lab through the one-way mirror. Throughout edubirdies.org review the study, the participant received both printed instructions from a paper packet and verbal instructions from the experimenter.
The participant began during the site’s homepage. The very first two tasks were to look for specific facts (found on separate pages when you look at the site), without using a search tool or even the “Find” command. The participant then answered Part 1 of a brief questionnaire. Next was a judgment task (suggested by Spool et al. 1997) where the participant first had to find information that is relevant then make a judgment about this. This task was followed by Part 2 of the questionnaire.
Next, the participant was instructed to spend ten full minutes learning as much as possible from the pages within the website, in preparation for a exam that is short. Finally, the participant was asked to draw written down the dwelling of the website, into the best of his / her recollection.
After completing the study, each participant was told factual statements about the analysis and received a present.
Task time was the number of seconds it took users to get answers for the two search tasks and one judgment task.
The two search tasks were to answer: “On what date did Nebraska become a state?” and “Which Nebraska city may be the 7th largest, in terms of population?” The questions when it comes to judgment task were: “In your opinion, which tourist attraction would be the one that is best to check out? Why do you would imagine so?”
Task errors was a percentage score on the basis of the amount of incorrect answers users gave in the two search tasks.
Memory comprised two measures through the exam: recall and recognition. Recognition memory was a portion score based on the amount of correct answers minus the wide range of incorrect answers to 5 questions that are multiple-choice. For instance, one of the questions read: “which can be Nebraska’s largest ethnic group? a) English b) Swedes c) Germans d) Irish.”
Recall memory was a share score in line with the wide range of tourist attractions correctly recalled minus the number incorrectly recalled. The question was: “can you remember any names of places of interest mentioned within the website? Please utilize the space below to list most of the ones you remember.”
Time and energy to recall site structure was the quantity of seconds it took users to attract a sitemap.
A related measure, sitemap accuracy, was a portion score on the basis of the amount of pages (maximum 7) and connections between pages (maximum 9) correctly identified, minus the wide range of pages and connections incorrectly identified.
Subjective satisfaction was determined from participants’ answers to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Some questions inquired about specific facets of working with your website, and other questions asked for an evaluation of how good adjectives that are certain the site (anchored by “Describes your website very poorly” to “Describes the website very well”). All questions used 10-point Likert scales.
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