research-article

Design Guidelines for Web Readability

Authors:

Aliaksei Miniukovich,

Antonella De Angeli,

Simone Sulpizio,

Paola VenutiAuthors Info & Claims

DIS '17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

Pages 285 - 296

https://doi.org/10.1145/3064663.3064711

Published: 10 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Reading is fundamental to interactive-system use, but around 800 million of people might struggle with it due to literacy difficulties. Few websites are designed for high readability, as readability remains an underinvestigated facet of User Experience. Existing readability guidelines have multiple issues: they are too many or too generic, poorly worded, and often lack cognitive grounding. This paper developed a set of 61 readability guidelines in a series of workshops with design and dyslexia experts. A user study with dyslexic and average readers further narrowed the 61-guideline set down to a core set of 12 guidelines -- an acceptably small set to keep in mind while designing. The core-set guidelines address reformatting -- such as using larger fonts and narrower content columns, or avoiding underlining and italics -- and may well aply to the interactive system other than websites.

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Cited By

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https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5
Elahi EMorato JIglesias A(2024)Improving Web Readability Using Video Content: A Relevance-Based ApproachApplied Sciences10.3390/app14231105514:23(11055)Online publication date: 27-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app142311055
Cosgrove F(2024)The Iterative Survey Adaptation of The Imitation Game: A survey approach to defining group identity through analysis of distinctivenessMethodological Innovations10.1177/2059799124128580217:4(203-214)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2024
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Index Terms

Design Guidelines for Web Readability
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image ACM Conferences

DIS '17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

June 2017

1444 pages

ISBN:9781450349222

DOI:10.1145/3064663

General Chair:
Oli Mival
Edinburgh Napier University, UK
,
Program Chairs:
Michael Smyth
Edinburgh Napier University, UK
,
Peter Dalsgaard
Aarhus University, Denmark

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 10 June 2017

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Italian Ministry of Universities and Research

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DIS '17

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SIGCHI

DIS '17: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2017

June 10 - 14, 2017

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

DIS '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 107 of 487 submissions, 22%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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DIS '25

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sigchi

Designing Interactive Systems Conference

July 5 - 9, 2025

Funchal , Portugal

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Cited By

Lee HXie I(2025)Disability, Accessibility, and Universal DesignEncyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5(511-518)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689-5.00139-5
Elahi EMorato JIglesias A(2024)Improving Web Readability Using Video Content: A Relevance-Based ApproachApplied Sciences10.3390/app14231105514:23(11055)Online publication date: 27-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app142311055
Cosgrove F(2024)The Iterative Survey Adaptation of The Imitation Game: A survey approach to defining group identity through analysis of distinctivenessMethodological Innovations10.1177/2059799124128580217:4(203-214)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991241285802
Duan PWarner JLi YHartmann B(2024)Generating Automatic Feedback on UI Mockups with Large Language ModelsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642782(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642782
Cai TNiklaus AKerr BKraley MBylinskii Z(2024)COR Themes for Readability from Iterative FeedbackProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642108(1-23)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642108
Wan LYan CMeng MWang KWang H(2024)Analyzing Excessive Permission Requests in Google Workspace Add-OnsEngineering of Complex Computer Systems10.1007/978-3-031-66456-4_18(323-345)Online publication date: 29-Sep-2024
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Steenhuis QWilley BColarusso DAndrade FGrabmair M(2023)Beyond Readability with RateMyPDFProceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law10.1145/3594536.3595146(287-296)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3594536.3595146
Kutter JLunte TBoll S(2023)Exploring Types of On-Demand Reading Assistance for Elementary School StudentsExtended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544549.3585711(1-5)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544549.3585711
Cai TNiklaus AKerr BKraley MBylinskii Z(2023)THERIF: Themes for Readability from Iterative FeedbackExtended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544549.3585679(1-11)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544549.3585679
Chen XSrivastava NJain RHealey JDingler T(2023)Characteristics of Deep and Skim Reading on Smartphones vs. Desktop: A Comparative StudyProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581174(1-14)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581174
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