Return-Path: <nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id h4CDpZC18267; Mon, 12 May 2003 09:51:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 09:51:36 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <BCC75904.62C%Andrew_Pleasant@Brown.edu> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Andrew Pleasant <Andrew_Pleasant@Brown.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:2828] Re: Comments on the Unweaving the Web Study X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Status: O Content-Length: 4391 Lines: 102 Hello David .. and NIFL-tech. I am one of the authors of the unweaving the web study and, first, am a bit late in offering a brief intro. as requested. I am just back from India where I participated in a review of a World Health Organization pilot project HealthInternetwork India - attempting to bridge the digital divide in relation to health information in India. The target audiences are predominantly policy-makers and health practitioners, but many of them are new to the web and/or low literate in English (the language of much health research for better or worse). That experience echoes some of our points made in the article we are discussing here as well as some of the points David Rosen made in his email. My general introduction is that I am interested in how information, beliefs, and attitudes - generally focusing on the environment or health - are formed, are or are not communicated and put to use and what are the barriers or facilitators to those processes. I look at more than Internet-based communication and include both individual and social factors in the scope of study. Of course, I appreciate David's confirmation of our preliminary findings. We too are always on the look-out for other studies specifically looking at low-literate users of the Web .. and honestly don't seem to find too much work in this area. However, it seems to me that there is a general building up of interest and, hopefully, we will begin to see our findings applied. And, again I agree with David, I would very much enjoy learning from other NIFL technology folks what they find in our study that either confirms or disagrees with their own experiences in this area. Best, andrew pleasant > From: "David J. Rosen" <DJRosen@theworld.com> > Reply-To: nifl-technology@nifl.gov > Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 16:47:15 -0400 (EDT) > To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-technology@literacy.nifl.gov> > Subject: [NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:2827] Comments on the Unweaving the Web Study > > Hello Christina, > > The "Unweaving the Web" Study is very helpful. Below are some of my > initial thoughts about it: > > The study confirms the widely observed importance of (and my 1995-1996 > research on) content interest such as: health information, > school/homework information, child care/parenting, Web-based job > searches, Web-based apartment searches, and home country information. > "News" "weather," "history," "church/religion", "maps," > "literature/poetry," "real estate/finance," "languages" and > "chat/e-mail" did not show up in my early research. > > The observations on the kinds of assistance Web users sought was > interesting: e.g. reminders needed to scroll, and to look for action > buttons. The scrolling and action button problems are not a surprise to > me, but it was good to see these issues are confirmed. > > I was reassured to see that unlabeled graphic links was found to be a > problem. I have observed this problem with many new Web users, > especially low literate users. > > I hadn't thought about pull down menus as a problem. But, of course, > they would be if one had not seen this feature before. > > I didn't know back arrows were a problem for some people. Of course, > typing Web addresses is a problem for many people -- especially for > those who do not write well. The observation that typing Web addresses > was experienced as a difficult transition, the 'dynamic jump from the > body ...to the small URL address window," was new for me. > > Searching, of course, has many challenges, some of which your study > documented, as does judging reliability of Web information. > > Your study supports the Children's' Partnership study findings that busy > Web pages are not attractive to low literate adults, and that they > present multiple barriers. > > The problem of translation mirror sites which you raised was interesting > -- I hadn't thought about this. > > The whole Further Study and Recommendations Section was great -- I > especially liked the user path history suggestion. > > Christina, I am interested to know if you are aware of other studies of > low literate adults use of the Web which have been completed or which > may be in progress. > > I would be interested to know, too, what struck others as interesting -- > What did the study confirm for you? What was new? > > All the best, > > David J. Rosen > >> > >
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