Participants
The participants were 51 experienced internet users recruited by Sun (average amount of Web experience was two years). Participants ranged in age from 22-69 (average age was 41). So that they can concentrate on “normal users,” we excluded the following professions from the research: webmasters, Web designers, graphic designers, user interface professionals, writers, editors, computer scientists, and computer programmers.
We checked for effects of age and Web experience from the dependent variables mentioned in the 1st five hypotheses, but we found only differences-none significant that is negligible. Had the sites in 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 ramifications 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 employment and gender status.
Experimental Materials
Called “Travel paytowriteessays.net discount Nebraska,” your website contained information regarding Nebraska. We used a travel site because 1) in our earlier qualitative studies, many Web users said travel is regarded as their interests, and 2) travel content lent itself to your writing that is different we wanted to study. We chose Nebraska to minimize 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 form of the Travel Nebraska site consisted of seven pages, and all versions used the same hypertext structure. To make certain that participants would focus on text rather than be distracted, we used modest hypertext (without any links away from site) and included only three photos and something illustration. There clearly was no animation. Topics within the site were Nebraska’s history, geography, population, places of interest, and economy. The Appendix to this paper shows elements of a sample page from each condition.
The control type of the website had a promotional form of writing (for example., “marketese,”), which contained exaggeration, subjective claims, and boasting, instead of just simple facts. Today this style is characteristic of many pages on the Web.
The concise version had a writing that is promotional, but its text was much shorter. Certain information that is less-important cut, bringing the word count for every page to about half that of the corresponding page when you look at the control version. Some of the writing in this version was in the inverted pyramid style. However, all information users had a need to perform the required tasks was presented within the order that is same all versions associated with site.
The scannable version also contained marketese, however it was written to encourage scanning, or skimming, of the text for information of interest. This version used lists that are bulleted 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.
Upon arrival in the usability lab, the participant signed a videotape consent form, then was told he or she would visit a website, perform tasks, and answer several questions.
The experimenter explained that he would observe from the room next door to the lab through the one-way mirror after making sure the participant knew how to use the browser. Through the entire study, the participant received both printed instructions from a paper packet and verbal instructions through the experimenter.
The participant began at the site’s homepage. The initial two tasks were to look for specific facts (located on separate pages in the site), without needing 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) in which the participant first needed to find information that is relevant then make a judgment about any of it. This task was followed by Part 2 regarding the questionnaire.
Next, the participant was instructed to pay ten minutes learning whenever you can through the pages within the website, in preparation for a exam that is short. Finally, the participant was asked to attract written down the structure of the website, to the best of his / her recollection.
Each participant was told details about the study and received a gift after completing the study.
Task time was the true amount of seconds it took users to find answers when it comes to two search tasks and one judgment task.
The two search tasks were to answer: “about what date did Nebraska become a continuing state?” and “Which Nebraska city is the 7th largest, in terms of population?” The questions for the judgment task were: “In your opinion, which tourist attraction will be the best one to visit? Why do you would imagine so?”
Task errors was a share score in line with the wide range of incorrect answers users gave into the two search tasks.
Memory comprised two measures from the exam: recognition and recall. Recognition memory was a percentage score in line with the wide range of correct answers without the quantity of incorrect answers to 5 multiple-choice questions. For instance, one of several questions read: “Which is Nebraska’s largest group that is ethnic? a) English b) Swedes c) Germans d) Irish.”
Recall memory was a share score based on the quantity of places of interest correctly recalled minus the number incorrectly recalled. The question was: “can you remember any true names of places of interest mentioned within the website? Please use the space below to list all of the ones you remember.”
Time for you to recall site structure was the wide range of seconds it took users to draw a sitemap.
A related measure, sitemap accuracy, was a percentage score on the basis of the wide range 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 asked about specific aspects of working with your website, along with other questions asked for an evaluation of how good certain adjectives described the site (anchored by “Describes the website very poorly” to “Describes the website very well”). All questions used 10-point Likert scales.