From Linguistics to Human Factors

2007-09-28 09:56 | ,

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.

For that purpose, I have introduced three features of discourse that represent some useful guidelines for Web authors to become aware of any possible context. Moreover, as there are visitors involved in the discourse through a Web site who speak different languages one can identify this problem as a matter of the tenor of discourse, referring to who is taking part in the communication. Presenting the different language versions of Web texts appropriately may then again help to respect a visitor’s context. So may good design, which also provides a leitmotiv for the perception of texts. Likewise, design lends a hand to using hypertext structures, which appears to be a new dimension in textual communication, compared to the print world.

All of these considerations have obviously been focused on the nature of Web texts and online communication. I will continue with a short discussion of the human factors within the use of Web texts. Human factors research is an important branch of usability research, and it is mainly concerned with the way how users read the Web, and with the consequences one must conclude from these findings. As shall be outlined in the following posting, the way users read Web texts also represents an important difference to the way users handle conventional texts.

Published by Christian Kuhn

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