Category: 07. Human Factors

What Else Do we Know About the Human Factors on the Web?

Throughout my linguistic considerations on Web texts so far, I already pointed out that users of Web sites can have very different contexts when accessing the information that is given. As a consequence, we must expect that visitors may have many different levels of reader interest in our Web texts. “Every person has a certain level of interest in every piece of information. A writer should help each reader to get their desired level of information as quickly as possible.” (Wallace 1999)

2007-10-18 16:30 | ,

How Users Read the Web

Certainly, there are many Web users who print out some information from the Web if they need it at a later date, for they do not want to rely on retrieving the information after leaving the Web site (see Book recommendation / advertisement: Buy this book at amazon.com/.co.uk/.de! Nielsen 2000). “Sometimes, the remote server will be down, sometimes the webmaster has removed the page, and sometimes the users are simply not able to find the page a second time.” (Book recommendation / advertisement: Buy this book at amazon.com/.co.uk/.de! Nielsen 2000, p 94) Nonetheless, the main interest in Web sites is immediate access to online information; this is what the whole thing is all about.

2007-10-17 12:50 |

From Linguistics to Human Factors

Up to this point, I have shed light on many different aspects of Web texts from a linguistic and communicative point of view. I have explained that a modern approach towards text linguistics has a broader conception of a particular piece of language; consequently, an author must also consider the context of the intended discourse that a text shall be part of. According to the communicative dilemma of written texts, the context in which a text shall be understood must be given in the text.

2007-09-28 08:56 | ,

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