Hi all Dr Kathryn Summers of the University of Baltimore replied with her advice on label location on forms for low literacy users. Please make sure that you attribute the following to her when you use it, thanks.
Dr Summers's consulting web site is at: http://www.userresearch.com/ "We found that the shortish labels worked above or to the left. We didn't do any testing focused on which placement was marginally better. The labels definitely don't work at all to the right. We put short labels to the left, but right-aligned. Longer labels, of course, must be above or left-aligned. Really long labels (full questions) must be above. We found that a single column worked best for low literacy users, except for fields that "logically" felt like a group: specifically city, state, zip, which could be laid out horizontally (but didn't need to be). Name should be all one field if possible. If not, then have three fields in a row: first _____ MI _ last _______ We added the single letter size box for the middle initial just so that there was a visual rather than text clue that the first and last name was split between boxes. We noticed that low literacy users generally abbreviated short form labels to just one word (they would read just one word), so email address became "address" and first name became "name." All text associated with the form should be 14 pt in size. The font size makes a big difference in readability generally for low literacy users (the text size in the website should really be 14 pt also, although I've seen 12 pt work. On another occasion, we did a text size comparison but the form was tested in the context of a web site that was a prototype designed for 12pt. When users clicked on the link to see the 14 pt version the page looked "broken". It seemed natural to me that they did not therefore "prefer" it. Plus it was a preference test-- which one do you like best--rather than a comprehension test, which is what we did to come up with the original 14 pt recommendation. MOST IMPORTANT: all elements of the form should be above the fold, especially for older users, even if that means lots of screens. The longest form we tested was 16 screens of questions, but that was a pretty long form, and it was crucially better than having form pages that required scrolling. Use a clear progress indicator that shows how much is left, and next and back buttons". Best Caroline Jarrett ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
