Following the signs: children's use of visual cues to facilitate website evaluation

Authors:
Valerie Nesset
Affiliations:
Department of Library & Information Studies, University at Buffalo, New York
Venue:
HCII'11 Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Human-computer interaction: users and applications - Volume Part IV
Year:
2011

Citing 3
Cited 1

Children's searching behavior on browsing and keyword online catalogs: the Science Library Catalog project

Journal of the American Society for Information Science
A case study of information-seeking behavior in 7-year-old children in a semistructured situation

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Colour appeal in website design within and across cultures: A multi-method evaluation

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Ranking, relevance judgment, and precision of information retrieval on children's queries: Evaluation of Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Yahoo! Kids, and ask Kids

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The paper discusses how research investigating reading strategies can inform web usability design for children by identifying visual cues or 'signposts' that facilitate reading and subsequent evaluation of websites. Using data obtained from a broader study of information-seeking behavior of thirdgrade students conducted in Montreal, Quebec, Canada the paper reports on the students' use of visual cues when reading and evaluating websites in their search for relevant information. It was discovered that such cues as bolded text, the chunking of textual passages, color, and the thoughtful placement of images all were factors that facilitated quick and efficient evaluation of websites.