Design guidelines for web readability

Reading is fundamental to interactive-system use, but around 800 million of people might struggle with it due to literacy difficulties. Few websites are designed for high readability, as readability remains an underinvestigated facet of User Experience. Existing readability guidelines have multiple issues: they are too many or too generic, poorly worded, and often lack cognitive grounding. This paper developed a set of 61 readability guidelines in a series of workshops with design and dyslexia experts. A user study with dyslexic and average readers further narrowed the 61-guideline set down to a core set of 12 guidelines - an acceptably small set to keep in mind while designing. The core-set guidelines address reformatting - such as using larger fonts and narrower content columns, or avoiding underlining and italics - and may well aply to the interactive system other than websites. © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s)

Novices' learning from the Internet : an exploration of navigation behaviours, learner-related factors, and mental effort

The current study was an exploration of why some novices are more successful than their peers when learning from the Internet by examining the relations among time spent with relevant information and changes in invested mental effort during Internet navigations as well as achievement. Navigation behaviours and learner characteristics were investigated as predictors of time spent with relevant information and changes in mental effort. Undergraduates (N = 85, Mage = 20 years, 5 months) searched the Internet for information corresponding to a low knowledge topic for 20 min while their eye gaze and pupil size were recorded. Pupil diameter was used as an objective, continuous measure of mental effort. Participants also completed questionnaires or computer tasks pertaining to s e l f-regulated learning characteristics (general intrinsic goal orientation and effort regulation) and cognitive factors (working memory control, distractibility and cognitive style). All analyses controlled for general mental ability, reading comprehension, topic and Internet knowledge, and overall motivation. A greater proportion of time spent with relevant information predicted higher scores on an achievement test. Interestingly, time spent with relevant information partially mediated the positive relation between the frequency of increases in invested mental effort and achievement. Surprisingly, intrinsic goal orientation was negatively related to time spent with relevant information and effort regulation was negatively related to the frequency of increases in invested mental effort. These findings have implications for supports when novices guide their own learning, especially when using the Internet

Criminal Careers in Cyberspace: Examining Website Failure within Child Exploitation Networks

Publically accessible, illegal, websites represent an additional challenge for control agencies, but also an opportunity for researchers to monitor, in real time, changes in criminal careers. Using a repeated measures design, we examine evolution in the networks that form around child exploitation (CE) websites, over a period of 60 weeks, and determine which criminal career dimensions predict website failure. Network data were collected using a custom-designed web-crawler. Baseline survival rates were compared to networks surrounding (legal) sexuality and sports websites. Websites containing CE material were no more likely to fail than comparisons. Cox regression analyses suggest that increased volumes of CE code words and images are associated with premature failure. Websites that are more popular have higher odds of survival. We show that traditional criminal career dimensions can be transferred to the context of online CE and constitute some of the key determinants of an interrupted career

History of art paintings through the lens of entropy and complexity

Art is the ultimate expression of human creativity that is deeply influenced by the philosophy and culture of the corresponding historical epoch. The quantitative analysis of art is therefore essential for better understanding human cultural evolution. Here we present a large-scale quantitative analysis of almost 140 thousand paintings, spanning nearly a millennium of art history. Based on the local spatial patterns in the images of these paintings, we estimate the permutation entropy and the statistical complexity of each painting. These measures map the degree of visual order of artworks into a scale of order-disorder and simplicity-complexity that locally reflects qualitative categories proposed by art historians. The dynamical behavior of these measures reveals a clear temporal evolution of art, marked by transitions that agree with the main historical periods of art. Our research shows that different artistic styles have a distinct average degree of entropy and complexity, thus allowing a hierarchical organization and clustering of styles according to these metrics. We have further verified that the identified groups correspond well with the textual content used to qualitatively describe the styles, and that the employed complexity-entropy measures can be used for an effective classification of artworks.Comment: 10 two-column pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in PNAS [supplementary information available at http://www.pnas.org/highwire/filestream/824089/field_highwire_adjunct_files/0/pnas.1800083115.sapp.pdf

Exploring Consumers’ Intention to Urge to Buy in Mobile Commerce: The Perspective of Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance

Mobile services have gradually transformed and broadened, and are still being developed, bringing users more convenience, ubiquity, universality, and diversification. The mobility and ubiquity of smartphones increase users’ perception of convenience, which can induce online purchases. Consumers can browse webpages on a smartphone find interesting products anywhere and anytime. They may impulsively decide to buy these products or conduct instant chats with friends to obtain product information or recommendations. It is important that we examine users’ emotions when shopping via mobile devices, now that m-commerce is gradually being accepted and used, by investigating factors such as customers’ perceptions of value, immersion, commitment, and pleasure. So, this study investigates consumers’ urge to buy and browsing activities in m-commerce from the emotional perceptive. Findings derived from data analysis of 578 records collected from the online survey. First, the relationship of pleasure, dominance and arousal on urge to buy is demonstrated in m-commerce. Second, results show that pleasure and browsing activities are critical to inducing consumers’ impulsive purchase intention in m-commerce. The total effect of pleasure on the urge to buy is close to 50%. The influence of pleasure on browsing activities is almost twice that of the urge to buy. Third, effects of web atmospherics and mobile characteristics are distinct. Web atmospherics tend to influence consumers’ perceived dominance of mobile websites, thus increasing their perceived control over the interaction process. Mobile characteristics are less important to arousal and dominance. The most popular characteristics of smartphones for consumers and vendors, ubiquity and localization, do not increase consumers’ perceived dominance and arousal towards mobile websites. Academic and practical implications are discussed further

Persuasive commentary: using the elaboration likelihood model to predict attitudinal change online

The current study examined the persuasiveness (based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model) of user comments on the evaluation of an Internet news article. Participants reviewed a news article concerning the implementation of a new comprehensive exam for all senior-level undergraduates, which was manipulated such that the news article information was either self-relevant (evoking central route processing) or self-irrelevant (evoking peripheral route processing). In addition, comments that followed the news article were also manipulated by both strength and quantity. Attitudes toward the topic of comprehensive exams for seniors were assessed via an attitudinal scale and thought listing task after viewing both the news article and subsequent commentary. Because individuals who process information centrally are more likely to parse information for logical development, it was predicted that individuals who centrally process information would be more likely to be influenced by the strength of comments than comment quantity. Alternatively, because individuals who process information peripherally pay attention to peripheral cues in lieu of logical development, it was predicted that these individuals would be more likely to be influenced by comment quantity than comment strength. Results suggested a possible conformity effect in both attitude and thought responses, such that comment presence alone evoked more positive attitudes and positive thoughts toward the proposed exam when compared to a no-comment control group. Additionally, contrary to the ELM, results suggested self-relevance was only a marginally significant factor when comparing attitudinal and thought response differences based on comment strength and a non-significant factor based on comment quantity. Finally, implications of utilizing consensus information (i.e., all pro-issue user comments) as well as caveats regarding the application of the ELM to online contexts are discussed