Lower-Literacy Users
Lower literacy is different than illiteracy: people with lower literacy can read, but they have difficulties doing so. The most notable difference between lower- and higher-literacy users is that lower-literacy users can't understand a text by glancing at it. They must read word for word and often spend considerable time trying to understand multi-syllabic words.
Characteristics of lower-literacy users
- They read the text line by line. This gives them a narrow field of view and they therefore miss objects outside the main flow of the text they're reading.
- Lower-literacy users don't scan text. As a result, for example, they can't quickly glance at a list of navigation options to select the one they want. They must read each word in each option carefully. Their only other choice is to completely skip over large amounts of information, which they often do when things become too complicated.
- Lower-literacy accept something as
good enough
-- based on very little information because digging deeper requires too much reading. As soon as text becomes too dense, and often overlook important information.
- Having to scroll breaks lower-literacy users' visual concentration because they can't use scanning to find the place they left off.
- Search creates problems for lower-literacy users for two reasons.
- They often have difficulty spelling the query terms.
- They have difficulty processing search results, which typically show weird, out-of-context snippets of text.
Improving Usability for Lower-Literacy Users
- Simplify the text. use a lower text level on the homepage, important category pages, and landing pages. On other pages, use a higher level of text.
- Prioritize information. Place the main point at the very top of the page, where even readers who typically give up after a few lines will see it. Place any other important information above the fold, to minimize the risk of users losing their place after scrolling.
- Avoid text that moves or changes. Static text is easier to read. This guideline also helps international users (who might need to look up words in a dictionary) and users with motor skills impairments (who have difficulty catching things that move).
- Streamline the page design. Place important content in a single main column. This guideline also helps low-vision users and users of handheld devices, with a narrow the field of view.
- Simplify navigation by placing the main choices in a linear menu. This helps users clearly understand the next place to go.
- Optimize search. Make your search tolerant of misspellings. Ideally, a user's first search hit should answer the query, and all hits should provide short, easy-to-read summaries.