Low-Literacy Users on the Web

Reading on the Web Most web users read as little as they can They scan the page, picking out important words and sentences Users scan for meaningful subheadings, highlighted text, and bulleted lists. However, low-literacy users read websites completely differently

Low-Literacy Users Low-Literacy Users can read, but have difficulty doing so According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 43% of the U.S. population has low literacy. Although they use the internet less than higher-literacy users, Jakob Nielson estimates that 30% of web users have low literacy

Low-Literacy Users Low-literacy users can’t understand text by glancing at it. They must read word-for-word Because they focus so much on the words, they miss objects outside of the flow of the text Scrolling is also a problems because these users are unable to scan to re- find their place

TOO MUCH TEXT Too much text will turn off any user, but a low- literacy user will start skipping text, looking for the next link. Because of this they will miss important information.

Navigation Navigation becomes difficult because low-literacy users must read each option carefully, or else skip over it altogether Imagine how you would feel upon entering this site for the first time

Navigation

Search Searching is also difficult for low-literacy users for two reasons: They have difficulty spelling the query terms They have difficulty understanding search results, because they “typically show weird, out- of-context snippets of text” These users typically choose the first hit on the list

What Can We Do? Some sites are targeted at higher-literacy users Corporate sites Science and technology sites However, many sites must target a larger audience and focus on low-literacy learners Government sites Health sites Mass-market commerce sites (Amazon.com)

Improving Usability Simplify the text On the homepage, use text aimed at a 6 th grade reading level On other pages, use 8 th grade level text

Improving Usability Prioritize information Place the most important information at the top of the page Place other important information above where the user needs to scroll to see it

Improving Usability Streamline the page design Place important content in a single main column This guideline also helps low-vision users and users connecting through small devices such as their phones

Improving Usability Simplify navigation Place main choices in a linear menu Don’t make users scan the page to find their options

Case Study In one case study, Jakob Nielson found that making these changes to a pharmaceutical site: Improved the success rate of low-literacy users by 36% Improved the success rate of high-literacy learners by 25% Decreased the total task time of low-literacy users from 22.3 minutes to 14.3 minutes Decreased the total task time of high-literacy users from 9.5 minutes to 5.1 minutes

CASE STUDY Low-literacy users increased their performance by an amazing 135% Higher-literacy users also saw increased performance and satisfaction with the site Everyone benefits when a site improves its usability

“Usability isn't a small tweak at the margins — it doubles a website's ability to meet its goals” – Jakob Nielson