Re: Evaluation results: Readability

Chetz's comment marked with CC::, my responses with WC::

CC::
>Participants tended not to read all the text of each Guideline / Technique,
>but to skim it.  This meant that some important information was missed.
>
>Potential solution:
>* It was suggested that the text could be in shorter phrases and bullet
points.
>
WC::
We have been trying to make the phrases as short as possible.  More strides
towards this end were hopefully made in the last version, as editing still
continues.  We welcome all  proposals for particular changes!

CC::
>Related problem: Different presentations.
>Some Participants said that they prefer to read long documents from paper,
>rather than on-line.  Previous work by Andrew Dillon (1994) has indicated
>that it can be more difficult to read from the screen.
>
>Potential solutions:
>* Could a printed version be provided?  This would not be a trivial task:
>it would lose its hypertext nature; all links would have to be replaced by
>references, etc.
>
WC::
We provide a zipped version, a postscript version, and a PDF version.

CC::
>* If the Guidelines and Techniques were broken into smaller files, with
>links between sections, and had more bullet points it may reduce the burden
>of reading it on-line.  It would also reduce the current loading time of
>the pages.
>
WC::
how do you suggest we break up the document into smaller files?  each
guideline in its own file?  each technique section?  could you create a
prototype of how this would look?

CC::
>Related problem: bold text
>Each Guideline is made up of ordinary text, bold text, and links, which in
>combination can make the text difficult to read.  The bold text is used to
>highlight the text of the Guideline, to indicate the groups of users
>affected, and to emphasise particular information.
>
>Potential solution:
>* The groups of users affected could be listed at the beginning or the end
>of the Checkpoint.  This would remove the distraction of the bold text, for
>example the second paragraph of Guideline 1 could read:
>"If text equivalents are not provided for visual information, the following
>groups will not know the purpose of the visual components of the page.
>People who:
><list item> are blind,
><list item> have low vision,
><list item> cannot view graphics,
><list item> have chosen not to view graphics."
>
WC::
good idea. we will look into this.  

CC::
>* Where bold text is used for emphasis, such as paragraph 3 of Guideline 2,
>it could be removed altogether where the points are repeated in the
>Checkpoints.
>
WC::
other people have made this comment as well.  We are currently removing
much of the use of bold text.

CC::
>* The links in each Guideline could also be listed separately from the text
>of the Guideline, so that an author can more easily read to the end of the
>Guideline, then follow links (as mentioned in our previous message
>regarding navigation).  This would mean each Guideline and Checkpoint would
>be structured thus: its current text, none of which would be bold, with the
>groups of users and links listed at the end.
>
WC::
yes, we agree with your previous message.

CC::
>By the way, some bold text is presented using <b>, others with <strong>.
>Is this intentional?
>
WC:: no, this is not intentional.

Received on Sunday, 14 March 1999 13:08:29 UTC