Web site readability and navigation techniques: an empirical study

Abstract

This research looks into factors that affect the readability of web sites. For those with low literacy skills, low readability may prove to be an insurmountable barrier to profitable, comfortable website use. Two factors that aid or inhibit the readability of web sites are the hierarchical structure of content within a site and the navigation technique employed to access the content. We tested whether the use of different navigation techniques affects web site readability. An experiment was conducted on two samples of scholars and the results of the experiment were then analysed to determine whether web site readability is dependent on the navigation technique used. The analysis revealed that the readability performance of web site users is not necessarily dependent on the navigation technique used. However, users' perceptions of the readability of a web site is affected by the navigation technique.