It's Much Harder To Understand Complicated Information When You're Reading through a Peephole

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As usual, the useit.com newsletter has some fascinating commentary.

This one is about the problems of accessing the web via a mobile device – tell me about it.

I quote.

When reading from an iPhone-sized screen, comprehension scores for complex Web content were 48% of desktop monitor scores.

It’s more painful to use the Web on mobile phones than on desktop computers for many reasons:

• Slower downloads

• No physical keyboard for data entry

• No mouse for selection; no mouse buttons to issue commands and access contextual menus

• Small screen (often with tiny text)

• Websites designed for desktop access instead of following the usability guidelines for mobile

• Whacky app UIs that lack consistency

And so on…

Heavens knows what the situation would be if you overlaid the problems of physiological ageing.

Jakob Nielsen’s comments are always worth reading.

Image by: nobihaya

Original Post: http://www.apps4boomers.com/2011/03/its-much-harder-to-understand.html