Editor's Notes

In our 16th issue of Usability News:

• User perceptions of email in different typefaces
• Eye gaze patterns when searching and browsing a website
• Usability of dual language K-8 school websites
• Accessibility of websites
• A review of Morae^TM for usability testing

Usability News is distributed to about 6000 usability professionals, developers, managers, and researchers in over 60 countries. We welcome your feedback and comments. Contributions, suggestions, and submissions for future issues should be directed to barbara.chaparro@wichita.edu.

Perceived Personality of Fonts: Take Two
We Need Your Input, AGAIN!

A. Dawn Shaikh

Last year, many of you completed an online survey related to personality of typefaces (fonts). Once again we are asking for your input. We have revamped the study in hopes of generating more findings related to the perception of typefaces. The new survey features a different text sample for the stimuli, new semantic scales, and a few new questions at the end. Additionally, each volunteer will rate a random sample of 20 typefaces out of a total of 40 that we are studying. The final portion of our new survey assesses the way you commonly use typefaces and your attitudes toward typeface usage.

We know this is a busy time of year, but again we would like to invite you to complete this survey at http://www.shaikh.us/fontstudy. Results will be summarized in a future issue of Usability News. Thanks for your help!

The Effect of Typeface on the Perception of Email

By A. Dawn Shaikh, Doug Fox, & Barbara S. Chaparro

Summary: This study investigated the effect that a font has on the reader’s perception of an email. Based on a previous study by Shaikh, Chaparro, and Fox (2006), a sample email message was presented in three fonts (Calibri, Comic Sans, and Gigi). The three chosen fonts represented a high, medium, and low level of congruency for email messages. The least congruent typeface (Gigi) resulted in different perceptions of the email document and its author. However, no significant differences were found between the moderately and highly congruent fonts.

INTRODUCTION

Email is arguably the most common and popular form of computer-mediated communication. The Digital Future Report published this year by the USC Annenberg School for Communication found that 69.7% of all Americans use email (http://digitalcenter.org) for personal and business-related communication. Similarly, eMarketer (http://www.emaillabs.com/resources/resources_statistics.html) reports that 147 million people in the United States use email on a daily basis.

While email has pervaded many people’s personal lives, it is an integral part of the typical work day as well. Within business organizations and educational institutions, email is a prevalent form of communication (Dabbish, Kraut, Fussell, & Kiesler, 2005; Tassabehji & Vakola, 2005). Surveys conducted by Dabbish and colleagues indicate that typical university email users send an average of 14 emails per day and read approximately 30 per day. In the business world, email is a daily part of the typical routine and is often at the center of new work practices (Tassabehji & Vakola). Tassebehji and Vakola reported that one-third of their survey respondents viewed email as a crucial part of their job and half believed email assisted them in doing their job better. Additionally, email was credited with improving teamwork, collaboration, and information flow.

While email is viewed as a rapid and productive means of communication, it is also seen as more impersonal and brief (Tassabehji & Vakola, 2005). Since email is commonly used for personal as well as professional communication, it is imperative to understand the ramifications of personal choices when composing emails. Users can either choose to accept the default typeface of the email client or to change the typeface. Typeface is an important part of visual rhetoric – type has the ability to communicate on its own. Typeface selection can set the mood of the document, provide information about the author’s ethos, and reveal areas of importance. This role is commonly known as the aesthetic or semantic role of typeface or the “apparent ‘fitness’ or suitability for different functions, ... which imbue it with the power to evoke in the perceiver certain emotional and cognitive responses” (Bartram, 1982, p. 38). Researchers such as Brumberger (2003) have pointed out that typefaces can have a persona which creates a mood for text. Typefaces can influence the mood of a document in three possible ways: the typeface may reinforce the text and mood; the typefaces may conflict with the message/mood; or there may be no influence resulting in a neutral effect.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of selected typefaces on the perception of the email creator’s ethos and gender. In addition, the perceived personality of the email document was evaluated.

METHOD

Participants

A total of 120 participants (58% male, 42% female) completed the survey and were compensated $10 for their participation in the study. The age range of the participants was 18-54 years with a majority (82.5%) falling in the range of 18-28 years. Approximately 76% of participants reported English as their first language, and 73% reported they read text online at least 2-6 hours per week.

Selection of Stimuli

A sample email was displayed in one of three fonts (Calibri, Comic Sans, or Gigi) as shown in Figures 1-3. The content of the email was pre-tested using 15 adjective pairs as reported in Shaikh, Chaparro, and Fox (2006) and determined to be neutral. Two preliminary studies were run to determine neutrality. The first study consisted of sixty participants viewing one of three different email documents and rating it on 15 adjective pairs using a five-point scale (a middle point was added to represent neutral). Figure 4 shows the adjective pairs used in all of the studies. In the second preliminary study, participants were asked to think of a typical email and then rate it using the same 15 adjective pairs on a five-point scale. From the results of the two preliminary studies, neutrality was determined using means analysis for the three email documents. The most neutral email was selected for use in the study being reported in this paper.

Figure 1. Email presented in Calibri font.
 
 

Figure 2. Email presented in Comic Sans font.
 

 Figure 3. Email presented in Gigi font
 

 Figure 4. Adjective pair list on the four-point Likert scale.

The selection of the three fonts used for the neutral email was based on previous work by Shaikh, Chaparro, and Fox (2006) that examined user perception of how appropriate 20 fonts were for 25 uses (i.e., business documents, web pages, email). In this previous study, participants viewed pangrams displayed in each font and checked the uses they would deem appropriate for the font presented. Using frequency analyses, percentage tables were created for how often participants would use a font for a particular use. Table 1 shows the percentages for each of the 20 fonts for the use of email. The three fonts chosen for this study represent either a high (Calibri), medium (Comic Sans), or low (Gigi) level of appropriateness as deemed by the users.

Table 1. Rank order of fonts that should be used for email

Procedure

Participants were shown the email document in one of three fonts (Calibri, Comic Sans, or Gigi). The email documents were displayed in HTML format using Internet Explorer 6.0. The participants were instructed to read the document carefully and then fill out a paper-based survey when finished reading. The survey consisted of two sections: the first section of the survey examined the persona of the document using the same adjective pair list and the 4-point scale that was used in Shaikh, Chaparro, and Fox (2006). The second section evaluated the perception of the author’s "ethos" and perception of the intended audience. Questions for this section were based on Brumberger’s (2003) study.

The ethos section was divided into two parts. Part 1 examined perception of the author based on five areas: knowledge, believability, maturity, professionalism, and trustworthiness. This was measured on a seven-point scale (-3 to +3) as shown in Figure 5. The last question used a five-point scale to rate the employment level of the email’s author as shown in Figure 6. Part 2 examined the participant’s perception of gender and age of the author and the intended audience. See Figures 7 and 8 for an example of these two questions.

Figure 5. Example question of perception of author’s ethos based on a seven-point scale.

Figure 6. Example question of perception of author’s employment level.



Figure 7. Example question for gender.



Figure 8. Example question for age.

RESULTS

A one-way between subjects ANOVA was used to analyze the relationship between the fonts for the adjective pair list. The levels of the independent variable (typeface) were Calibri, Comic Sans, and Gigi. The dependent measure was the score on each of the adjective pairs. To control for familywise Type I errors when making multiple comparisons, the alpha level was set to .005. Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for the adjective pair list for each of the fonts. The email presented in Gigi was viewed as less stable (F(2,117) = 8.42, p < .003, η² = .13) and less practical (F(2,117) = 12.2, p < .003, η² = .17). It was also viewed as more rebellious (F(2,117) = 7.45, p < .003, η² = .11), youthful (F(2,117) = 9.98, p < .003, η² = .15), and feminine (F(2,117) = 6.67, p < .003, η² = .10) than the emails in either Calibri or Comic Sans.

A one-way between subjects ANOVA was also used to evaluate the three emails for the second section of the survey. Results suggest that the email presented in Gigi was less believable (F(2,117) = 6.40, p < .003, η² = .10). The author of this same document was perceived as less professional (F(2,117) = 11.80, p < .003, η² = .17), less trustworthy (F(2,117) = 11.65, p < .003, η² = .17), and less mature (F(2,117) = 12.77, p < .003, η² = .18). The means and standard deviations for the second section of the survey are shown in Table 3.

A two-way Chi Square was used to evaluate the perception of gender for the author and intended audience, the position level in the company, and the age of the author and audience. Results suggest that the author was most likely female and presumed to be at the trainee level, rather than higher up in the company (χ² (2, N=120) = 6.14, p < .05; χ² (2, N=120) = 15.74, p < .01).

Table 2. Means and standard deviations for 15 adjective pair list. This was used to assess the personality of the email documents. Those in bold were significant.

Table 3. Mean and Standard deviations for the second section of survey. This was used to assess the perception of the author and intended audience. Those in bold were significant.

DISCUSSION

The results from this study suggest there is a relationship between typeface selection and the reader’s perception of an email. The email presented in the typeface that was judged in previous studies to be low in appropriateness for email (Gigi) was perceived to be less stable, less practical, more rebellious, and more youthful than either Calibri (highly appropriate) or Comic Sans (moderately appropriate). This finding suggests that documents presented in typefaces that are viewed as less appropriate are seen as less serious and less professional in nature. The appropriateness of the typeface also affected the perception of the email author in that the email using Gigi created a perception of an author who is less professional, less trustworthy, and less mature. Finally, the typeface that was lower in appropriateness led participants to conclude that the author was a lower level trainee employee. When choosing a typeface for a document, the level of appropriateness should be taken into account in order to avoid sending unintentional messages.

The results did not find significant differences between the moderately and highly appropriate typefaces. In previous work Shaikh, Chaparro, and Fox (2006) found that Comic Sans was perceived as happier, more cuddly, younger, and more passive than Calibri. However, in the present study, significant differences were not found on these adjectives. A possible explanation for this is that Comic Sans has become so commonly used, that readers have become immune to its casual, happy nature.

The millions of people that email friends, family members, and co-workers should be aware of the fact that typeface can have an effect on the perception of the content. Typefaces should be chosen to reflect the message of the content and care should be taken to ensure that the typeface does not conflict with the intentions of the author.

References

Bartram, D. (1982). The perception of semantic quality in type: Differences between designers and non-designers. Information Design Journal, 3, p. 38-50.

Brumberger, E. (2003). The rhetoric of typography: The persona of typeface and text. Technical Communication, 50(2), 206-223.

Dabbish, L., Kraut, R., Fussell, S., & Kiesler, S. (2005). Understanding email use: Predicting action on a message. CHI 2005 (pp. 691-700). Portland, OR: ACM.

Shaikh, A. D., Chaparro, B. S., & Fox, D. (2006) Perception of fonts: Perceived personality traits and uses. Usability News, 8(1). Retrieved November 12, 2006, from http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/81/PersonalityofFonts.htm

Tassabehji, R., & Vakola, M. (2005). Business email: The killer impact. Communications of the ACM , 48 (11), 64-70.

Eye Gaze Patterns while Searching vs. Browsing a Website

By Sav Shrestha & Kelsi Lenz

Summary: This article discusses users' visual scan paths of web pages containing text and/or pictures while conducting browsing and searching tasks. User performance on three usability tasks on an e-commerce website is described. Results show that users follow a fairly uniform scan path when browsing through pictures, and a more random path while specifically searching through them. Additionally, users appeared to follow Nielsen’s ‘F’ pattern (2006) while both browsing and searching through text-based pages.

Introduction

According to Nielsen (2006) users tend to focus on the left side of the body of a webpage when reading and fixate very little on information located on the right-hand side. Users maintain this ‘F’ viewing pattern with a few horizontal scans, the first one being longer than the second and a long vertical scan (Figure 1). Implications of this are that users may miss valuable information located on the right-hand side of the page.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Figure 1.  The “F” pattern as noted by Nielsen (2006).
(The red areas indicate the highest number of fixations, followed by yellow and blue.)

This study investigated whether the “F” pattern style of viewing was dependent on the page content (text-based vs. picture-based) and/or on the user task (searching vs. browsing). This information could play a valuable role in determining where companies should place certain types of information on web pages.

METHOD

Twenty undergraduate students (17 female, 3 male) at Wichita State University participated in this study. Sixty-five percent of the participants were between the ages of 18 and 26 years. A Pentium IV-based PC computer with 96 dpi, 17” monitor with a resolution setting of 1024 x 768 pixels was used. The monitor was integrated with the Tobii 1750 eye-tracking system, which was used to detect and collect participant eye-gaze data during testing. The Tobii 1750 eye-tracker samples the position of the user’s eyes on an average of every 20ms (i.e., 50Hz) and has the eye-tracking hardware (e.g., high resolution camera and near infra-red light-emitting diodes) in the monitor frame. This allows for more natural user behavior by not placing restrictions on the participants (e.g., helmets, chin-rests).

Participants were seated approximately 60 cm away from a computer monitor. All participants completed three tasks each (one search task, one browsing task, and one search task for a non-existent product). Participants were allowed 20 seconds to complete each individual task. Participants were shown two web pages, one at a time (Figure 2). The search task for Figure 2a required participants to find the product category for backpacks. The search tasks for Figure 2b required participants to find information on what kind of backpack was best suited for travel along narrow, uneven trails. Browsing tasks for each page asked the participants to simply browse the information on the page with no specific goal. All participants were also asked to find a product category for a Mountain Bike shown in Figure 2a. This product was not available on the site.

Figure 2a. (left) Picture page viewed by the participants
Figure 2b. (right) Text page viewed by the participants

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Gaze Patterns While Viewing a Picture Page

Hotspot plots for the browsing task and the search task are shown in Figures 3 and 4. When browsing this page, the users scanned the categories in a horizontal pattern (left to right and right to left) line by line. It should be noted that the area visible when the page displayed (i.e., area "above the fold") received the most fixations even though all users scrolled the page as they browsed.

Figure 3. Hotspot plot while browsing the product categories. The area "below the fold" of this page was located below the fourth row of product categories.

When searching specifically for the backpack category, users appeared to follow a less systematic scan path. Eye tracking of the page was stopped immediately after the target category was identified. For this reason the hotspot plot below shows very light exposure to the areas other than the target area of interest.

Figure 4. Hotspot plot for the backpack category search task.

A sample of individual gaze plots from users browsing the page (top 3 screenshots in Figure 5) also show the left to right search pattern. The gaze plots of searching for the backpack category (bottom 3 screenshots in Figure 5) show that the users followed a more random path.

Figure 5. Gaze plots for browsing (top) and searching (bottom) a page of product categories. (The blue circle indicates the duration of fixation with larger circles representing longer fixations; and the blue lines connecting the dots indicate the saccade path)

Figure 6 shows the hotspot plot for the search for the nonexistent Mountain Bike category. The user gazed almost uniformly across all the categories with the heaviest concentration in the top left.

Figure 6. Hotspot plot while searching for the nonexistent Mountain Bike category.

Further investigation of the individual gaze plots, shown in Figure 7, shows how each user followed a unique and random path while searching for the nonexistent Mountain Bike category. It was interesting to see that several of the participants did not fixate on all of the categories.

Figure 7. Individual gaze plots while searching for the nonexistent Mountain Bike category.

Gaze Patterns While Viewing a Text Page

Figure 8 shows hotspot plots when browsing and searching the text page. During both tasks, users seemed to follow by the “F” pattern suggested by Nielsen (2006). Users had more fixations at the beginning of a line than the end of a line, and also the fixations were more for the first few lines than for subsequent lines.

Figure 8. Hotspot plot while performing the browsing (left) and searching (right) task for the text page.

A sample of individual gaze plots for browsing (top 4 plots) and for searching for the specific information (lower 4 plots) are shown in Figure 9. It can be noted that the gaze plot in the browsing task is somewhat more dispersed than the gaze plot in the searching tasks where it is more concentrated to the upper portion of the webpage. This was due to the fact that the participants searching for the specific information tended to read the text more closely than the participants that were browsing. However, some individual differences can be seen in the second plot on the browsing and third plot in the searching tasks, which actually show an opposite pattern.

Figure 9. Sample individual gaze plots for the browsing (top) and searching (bottom) task for the text page.
 

Conclusion

From this study we have replicated what Nielsen (2006) called the "F" pattern of viewing for a text-based webpage as shown in Figure 8. With a few exceptions, we also found the browsing task elicited this same "F" pattern though it was more dispersed than the search task. This pattern and the exceptions can be seen in Figure 9.

The "F" pattern style of viewing does not seem to hold true while browsing or searching a picture-based webpage. Much of the participant's gaze was on the categories of pictures that were above the fold as shown in Figure 3. Participants were very efficient at searching for a particular category among the 31 categories of pictures, however, the pattern of search for each participant was unique. The participants fixated on only 8-15 items before the target was identified. The style of viewing while searching for a non-existent category was more uniformly distributed above and below the fold unlike in the browse task where categories below the fold did not receive many fixations.

These results reinforce the importance of conciseness in the delivery of text on web pages. Since the right hand side of the page and the content below the fold is typically ignored, pages should be structured so that the important content falls in the "F" pattern. Further investigation is needed to see how the viewing pattern changes when the text is divided into columns. For picture pages, positioning the important or featured products above the fold is most effective. Further investigation is needed to determine what kind of pictures draw more attention and how viewing patterns change for web pages containing both pictures and text.

ReferenceS

Nielsen, J. (2006). F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. Retrieved January 18, 2007, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html 

Comparing the Usability of Three Dual-Language School Websites

By Shivashankar Naidu, Veronica D. Hinkle, & Sav Shrestha

Summary: This study evaluated the usability of three websites for Spanish-English Dual Language K-8 schools. Twelve participants (6 parents, 6 teachers) reviewed and performed tasks on the three public school websites. Site usability was determined through both objective and subjective measures, including task completion time, first-click, total number of pages visited, task success, perceived task difficulty, user satisfaction, and overall ranked preference. Results indicated that one site was preferred more than the others by both user groups and resulted in more efficient search behavior. Clear navigation, link terminology, and proper use of both languages were found to be critical factors contributing to the sites’ usability. 

INTRODUCTION

McKenzie (1997) says that a well designed school website has four goals:

1. Introduce the school to the visitors and to anyone who wants to know about the mission and objectives of the school.

2. Act as a resource center offering informational links from the World Wide Web that is relevant and educational to the teachers, parents, and students.

3. Act as a platform to publish student work.

4. Provide relevant and informational content locally.

To meet these goals, the needs of the end-users must be understood. This can be complicated for a school website because there are a number of unique user groups including parents, teachers, visitors, and students. While the needs and expectations of these user groups are very different, they all need to be taken into consideration while designing the school site. A dual language school introduces additional challenges because it delivers its curriculum in two languages. The purpose of such schools is to provide an educational curriculum whereby students can graduate proficient in reading, writing, and conversing in both languages. One goal of a dual language school website is to provide school information while at the same time conveying the bilingual nature of the school. This is typically done by presenting the site content in both languages.  

The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the usability of three dual language (English/Spanish) school websites found in the United States. We evaluated the school websites for the Horace Mann Dual Language Magnet School (Wichita, KS), the Adelante Spanish Immersion School (Redwood City, CA), and the Amigos School (Cambridge, MA). Figures 1-3 show the homepages for these school websites.
 

Figure 1. Horace Mann Dual Language School Home page

Figure 2. Adelante Spanish Immersion School Home page




Figure 3. Amigos School Home page

METHOD

Participants

A total of 12 participants ranging between 29 and 63 years of age (M = 41.50) volunteered for this study. Six participants were elementary school teachers and 6 were parents of elementary-aged children. None of the participants were affiliated with any of the schools tested. Participants were recruited from local communities such as elementary schools and the YMCA. Seventy-five percent of the participants reported using the Internet on a daily basis for work and educational purposes.

Procedure

Participants were asked to complete nine basic tasks on all three of the websites. The tasks were as follows:

1. What is a dual language program?

2. What types of classes are typically offered in the second language?

3. What is the school philosophy or approach to teaching a second language?

4. Find a link that provides information to help with a child’s homework.

5. Your son/daughter is entering third grade this school year. Find the third grade teachers’ names.

6. You would like to know more about parent volunteer opportunities at the school. Find volunteer programs in the school (i.e., a parent-teacher organization).

7. Your family is going to Cancun for Christmas this year. Find out when winter recess begins and when is the first day of school next semester.

8. You noticed an error in some of the information on the site and would like to report it. Find the person responsible for fixing errors or anything related to the website.

9. Find out the name of the school principal(s) and his/her e-mail.

Tasks were presented in random order for each of the three sites, and the order of the sites was counterbalanced across participants. After each task, the participants were asked to provide a difficulty rating (1 = Very Easy and 5 = Very Difficult) for that particular task. In addition, after all tasks were completed, participants were asked to complete a modified version of the System Usability Scale (Brooke, 1996) to evaluate their satisfaction with varying components of the website they had just used. Task success, time on task, and total number of pages visited were also collected. The number of pages visited helped determine the efficiency of use by comparing it to the optimal number of pages necessary to complete the task. Both time on task and the number of pages were gathered using Ergobrowser™ (2001).

RESULTS

Success

Table 1 shows the percentage of participants that were successful on each task for all three websites. Success rates were fairly high overall and did not differ significantly across the sites (F(2,10) = 1.87, p > .05). Finding a link for homework help was the most difficult task across all three sites, especially for the Amigos site (16.7% successful) and the Horace Mann site (41.7%). Participants either expected this information to be behind a parent information link or to be clearly labeled “Homework/School Help”. The Horace Mann link for homework help was named “Hawk’s Nest” after the school athletic teams, which none of the participants were familiar with. The Amigos site link was called “Library” which participants found misleading. The relative success (66.7%) on Adelante’s site was due to the fact that this information was behind a link labeled “Useful Links”.

Finding the types of classes offered in the second language was difficult on the Adelante site (41.7% successful) primarily because this information was only vaguely mentioned within the text.

The task requesting the users to find information on a parent volunteer group also resulted in lower success on the Adelante site (33.3%). The parent-teacher group was referred to as “UNIDOS” which confused the participants who did not speak Spanish. Participants also had trouble finding the principal’s name and email on the Adelante site (58.3%) because there was no direct link to the principal’s information.

Table 1.  Percent of participants successful on the tasks on each website (bold indicates least successful tasks)

Navigation Efficiency (Speed and Number of Pages visited)

While participants took the least amount of time to complete the tasks on the Horace Mann website, there was no statistically significant difference across sites (Figure 4) (F(2,10) = 1.61, p > .05). In addition, participants clicked, on average, 1.68 pages beyond the optimal path on the Horace Mann site, 2.61 pages beyond the optimal path on the Amigos site, and 3.81 pages beyond the optimal path on the Adelante site.

Figure 4. Average time for participants to complete all tasks

Satisfaction and Preference

Overall, Horace Mann was rated the highest in overall satisfaction (79.6 out of 100), followed by a 60.4 rating for Amigos and a 49.2 rating for Adelante (F(2,10) = 4.71, p < .05). When asked which site they preferred the most, most participants chose the Horace Mann site. Parents had unanimous agreement over the most preferred website (100% chose Horace Mann) while teachers showed less consensus (67% chose Horace Mann).

User Group Differences

Observation of the teachers and parents as they worked through the tasks revealed that each user group has specific expectations for where things should be in a website.  Most of the teachers in this study had more experience dealing with school websites and showed more flexibility and patience when searching for answers. Parents tended to be less experienced with using school-related websites and became easily frustrated when they could not find the information quickly.

On average, teachers showed a trend for higher success on the tasks across all websites than the parents (Figure 5); although the difference was not statistically significant. In addition, teachers visited fewer overall pages for task completion when compared to parents, F(1,8) = 6.67, p = .03 (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Overall Task Success rate by user group. In general, teachers were more successful than parents. 

Figure 6. Average total number of pages visited by participants to complete all tasks.

DISCUSSION

Results from this study revealed several design issues that impacted both performance and satisfaction of the dual language sites.

Link Terminology

Link names that were in a foreign language (e.g., "UNIDOS") were problematic, because the non-Spanish-speaking parents and teachers did not know what they represented. Also, links that were too specific to the school were misunderstood. For example, users had difficulty finding the student homework help. On the Horace Mann site this information was under the link named Hawk's Nest. While this task may not have been problematic to actual parents of the school (who are familiar with the school mascot), it is important to consider how visitors will use the site. School websites are often used as a marketing tool for future students and teachers in addition to an information repository for current students.

Display of Bilingual Information

All of the sites used in this study displayed the site content in both English and Spanish. While most of the participants in this study were monolingual, they liked having the Spanish information available since the schools promoted dual-language programs. The only time users disliked the use of the foreign language was when it was used as a link name on both the Spanish and English portions of the site. Web designers of dual language school websites cannot assume the parents of children at the school will be bilingual.

Another important consideration of the bilingual content is the translation from one language to the other. The terminology needs to be familiar to the users in either language. Simply translating one word into the other language does not always provide a comprehensible link name. One example of this is the “about us” link. In Spanish, the literal translation (“Sobre Nosotros”) sounds awkward to a Spanish-speaker as a link name. The correct term would be “Conocenos.” Using the most accepted terminology on the second language ensures that native speakers easily recognize the links and understand what they may be about. A native speaker should be consulted for proper translation or ideally be part of the web design team.

Conclusion

This study examined the usability of three dual language school websites for both teachers and parents. Clear navigation, link terminology, and proper use of both languages were found to be critical factors contributing to the sites’ usability. Parents and teachers differed slightly in their site expectations and satisfaction which reiterates the importance of gathering user requirements for all potential user groups during design.

REFERENCES

Brooke, J. (1996). SUS: A Quick and Dirty Usability Scale, in P. Jordan, B. Thomas, B. Weerdmeester, & I. L. McClelland (eds.), Usability evaluation in industry, (pp. 189-94). London, UK: Taylor & Francis.

Ergobrowser™, Ergosoft Laboratories © 2001.

McKenzie, J. (1997). Why in the World Wide Web? (Available online http://www.fno.org/mar97/why.html) 

Summer Internship @ Google, Inc.: Accessibility Experiences

A. Dawn Shaikh, Wichita State University
Philip Strain, Queens University Belfast, UK

Note: This article is based on a paper accepted for CHI 2007 (Strain, Shaikh, & Boardman).

Summary: This paper summarizes some of the major lessons learned about conducting usability tests with visually impaired participants while working as interns at Google, Inc. The lessons were in four major areas: (1) recruitment and scheduling, (2) preparing the usability lab for testing sessions, (3) using think-aloud protocol with screen readers, and (4) helping observers to get the most out of the test sessions.

The term “Accessibility," when applied to websites, involves the assurance that users with a disability have an equivalent user experience to those without disabilities. A variety of guidelines have been published to help website developers achieve accessible websites, such as W3C WCAG 1.0 [8] and Section 508 [7]. However, studies have shown that it is possible for a website to be compliant with such guidelines yet still have accessibility issues [2, 4]. For example, blind people using screen readers rely on image links having “alt text” to describe their function. This is a key web accessibility guideline. However, if the alt text does not clearly describe the target of the link, a blind user can still have difficulties (See examples in Table 1). Such cases have contributed to the recognition of the need to test websites with disabled populations, and the British Standards Institution (BSI) has released a Publicly Available Specification (BSI PAS 78) [1] that emphasizes the need for user testing.

Table 1. Examples of ALT text that could be more informative and therefore result in a better experience for screen reader users.

This paper describes some of the authors’ experiences as interns at Google, Inc. We were both assigned to spend time on accessibility issues encountered by visually impaired users. In this paper, we discuss some of our experiences recruiting participants, steps taken to prepare the usability lab, challenges faced by the team, and steps taken to make the most of usability testing session.

Recruiting Participants

In order to recruit visually impaired participants, we initially made phone contact with local centers that offer support services for visually impaired people. After establishing an initial contact, we sent a screening questionnaire by email along with a brief introduction letter. The contact for each center then forwarded our email to potential participants. Within a few days of contacting the centers, we started receiving completed questionnaires. We found that many recipients of the initial email kindly forwarded it on to their contacts who met our criteria as well. Our use of snowball sampling resulted in 30+ completed questionnaires and provided us with a variety of participants to choose from. In spite of the fact that potential participants were skewed toward experienced computer users, the respondents varied in terms of age, ethnicity, length of blindness, and time using screen readers.

We then personally scheduled each participant for their on-campus usability session. On-campus testing was conducted in order to allow team members from the various Google properties to attend the usability testing sessions. Once scheduled for a session, participants received a confirmation letter stating their schedule testing time, compensation, and directions to the testing facility. The consent form was also included as a MS Word attachment.

Lessons Learned:

1. Use the same person to schedule and greet all participants. This seemed to result in increased comfort level for the participants.

2. Send out the screening questionnaire as text embedded in the initial email and as a MS Word document attachment.

3. Briefly explain the goals of the study in the initial email.

4. Make all equipment requirements clear from the beginning and include questions in the screener to verify use of required equipment. (i.e.: If you are looking for JAWS users then ask participants if they use JAWS, etc. )

5. Use the screening questionnaire to collect typical demographic information – this saves time during the actual test session.

6. Many of the participants we reached through our email campaign were long-time computer users. If more novice computer users are needed, an alternative method of recruitment may be needed.

7. Information about the testing session should be sent as text or MS Word file. The information sent should include directions (in text form) to the testing facility.

8. If conducting on-site test sessions, provide participants with travel compensation.

9. Allow