Comments on: The Lost Art of Reading Directions http://cogdogblog.com/2004/03/28/the-lost/ Alan Levine's blog space for barking about instructional technology Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:49:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Ben Brophy http://cogdogblog.com/2004/03/28/the-lost/#comment-475 Ben Brophy Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://cogdogblog.com/2004/03/28/the-lost-art-of-reading-directions/#comment-475 In all the times I've watched people use a web application in a usability test, no one has read the text.* They seem to look for the next thing to click on each page, and they either find something to click that they think will bring them closer to their goal in a few seconds or the click the back button and start over. So what they end up reading is everything that is bold or a link (I've never tried making everything bold and a link, but I doubt that would work!). I'm working on a gradebook tool for Sakai. We are going to deliver a user interface for the tool to the developers in May. Do you have any suggestions in mind after your experience with WebCT? We'll try to keep the number of clicks under control, of course! *OK I saw one person read the text, and she read every single word on every page and it took for ever for her to finish the usability test... In all the times I’ve watched people use a web application in a usability test, no one has read the text.* They seem to look for the next thing to click on each page, and they either find something to click that they think will bring them closer to their goal in a few seconds or the click the back button and start over.

So what they end up reading is everything that is bold or a link (I’ve never tried making everything bold and a link, but I doubt that would work!).

I’m working on a gradebook tool for Sakai. We are going to deliver a user interface for the tool to the developers in May. Do you have any suggestions in mind after your experience with WebCT? We’ll try to keep the number of clicks under control, of course!

*OK I saw one person read the text, and she read every single word on every page and it took for ever for her to finish the usability test…

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