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Demographic Change leads to an increase of elderly users relying on supportive systems, such as “E-Health Assistants”. Acceptance and ease of use of those systems are highly dependent on an age-appropriate design. Especially readability of instructions should be taken into account in this respect, since users find themselves confronted with the manual as soon as questions concerning the system arise. There has only been little research on the relevance of different factors influencing readability of manuals for elderly. The objective of this research was to evaluate the relevance of temporal iconicity, linguistic factors (foreign words, signal words, active/passive voice), and ...

Icon arrays have been found to improve risk understanding and reduce judgment biases across a wide range of studies. Unfortunately, individuals with low graph literacy experience only limited benefits from such displays. To enhance the efficacy and reach of these decision aids, the authors developed and tested 3 types of dynamic design features—that is, computerized display features that unfold over time. Specifically, the authors manipulated the sequential presentation of the different elements of icon arrays, the presence of explanatory labels indicating what was depicted in the different regions of the arrays, and the use of a reflective question followed by ...

BACKGROUND: Orthographically similar drug names create confusion errorsand pose a potential threat to medication safety. Enhancing the differing letters in similar drug names is one possible way to address the problem. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effects of text enhancement methods (tall man, boldface, larger lowercase, and red lettering with lowercase as the comparison group) and orthographic similarity (referred to the extent to which the letters that made up the two names in a pair were similar to each other) on the differentiation performance of look-alike drug names. METHODS: Sixty individuals from a university and its affiliated hospital participated in ...

The illusion of understanding hypothesis asserts that, when people are learning with multimedia presentations, the addition of animation can affect metacognitive monitoring such that they perceive the presentation to be easier to understand and develop more optimistic metacomprehension. As a result, learners invest less cognitive effort when learning with animation. This study tested the illusion of understanding hypothesis with a randomized, double-blind, 2 × 2 factorial design using two different types of animation—representational and directive. Representational animation had a negative effect on learning, and directive animation had a positive effect. Both representational and directive animations induced illusion of understanding. Moreover, ...

Several studies have shown that adding seductive details to instructional materials has a detrimental effect on learning. However, other studies have shown non-significant findings. The present study uses cognitive load theory as a theoretical framework to explain these controversial results in seductive details research. Using a 2 × 2 experimental design we asked a group of high-school students (N = 100) to learn about biology with a multimedia environment that manipulated the presence of seductive details (with vs. without) and the modality of the verbal information (high load, on-screen text vs. low load, narration). The findings showed that students’ learning performance was significantly higher when seductive ...

BACKGROUND: The publication norms of the American Psychological Association recommend the use of a serif font in the manuscripts (Times New Roman). However, there seems to be no well-substantiated reason why serif fonts would produce any advantage during letter/word processing. METHOD: This study presents an experiment in which sentences were presented either with a serif or sans serif font from the same family while participants' eye movements were monitored. RESULTS: Results did not reveal any differences of type of font in eye movement measures -except for a minimal effect in the number of progressive saccades. CONCLUSIONS: There is no reason ...

Previous research identifies two types of advertising comprehension—objective comprehension and subjective comprehension—with the former message-based and the latter receiver-based. This study examines the effects of body-copy type size on readers' subjective and objective comprehension of the message in a typical print ad. The study finds that type size has a significant positive effect on subjective comprehension of the ad, but not on objective comprehension. Subjective comprehension mediates the positive effect of type size on attitude toward the advertised product. The main implication of the study is that advertisers should use as large a type size as possible for the copy ...

Our study integrates automated natural language-oriented assessment and analysis methodologies into feasible reading comprehension tasks. With the newly developed T-MITOCAR toolset, prose text can be automatically converted into an association net which has similarities to a concept map. The “text to graph” feature of the software is based on several parsing heuristics and can be used both to assess the learner’s understanding by generating graphical information from his or her text and to generate conceptual graphs from text which can be used as learning materials. In this study we investigate the effects of association nets made available to learners prior ...

This study uses eye tracking technology to examine how study aids such as highlighting and graphic organizers affect cognitive processing during learning. Participants were 130 college students randomly assigned to one of five experimental conditions. In the control group, students read a plain text; in two behaviorally passive conditions, students read a text with key words colored in red or read the same text along with a filled-in graphic organizer; and in two behaviorally active conditions, students either highlighted key words in a text or filled in an empty graphic organizer. Students took tests of rote memory (cloze test) and ...

OBJECTIVE: Written medicine information is essential to support spoken information from pharmacists, but must be fit-for-purpose. This study applied "user testing" to the booklet supplied to UK patients taking anticoagulant medicines. METHODS: "User testing" uses mixed-methods, applied iteratively, to assess document performance - can people find and understand key points of information through a questionnaire and short semi-structured interview. The booklet was tested in 3 rounds of 10 people. After each round it was revised according to participants' responses, and re-tested. RESULTS: The first round questionnaire identified problems with 6/18 information points (booklet purpose; other information; what affected daily doses; ...