When you have too much text for one slide, how do you determine if it's better to include all of the text on the slide and use a scrolling panel or cut the text off and continue onto the next slide? I'm trying to find some best practice about this or legitimate theory, but I haven't found much.
That's a really good question, and I imagine you'll get a lot of Pros/Cons both ways.
Are you familiar with Jakob Nielesen? He's a well-know usability guru. Here's a post, admittedly older (2005) that came up as a hit when I did a cursory search on "is scrolling good ui"
Admittedly, this is about websites, but since Learners are accessing via browsers, I believe it still applies (IMHO of course). Note his comments on difficulties with some potential audiences: those with motor skill impairments, low-literacy users, and the elderly.
He also gives scroll bar design ideas, although we don't have much control over that in SL.
See an "on the other hand", re vertical scrolling, in this newer article (2012)...the section on long pages. Not sure they took into account the audiences discussed above.
Thanks, Rebecca! Both articles were great reading.
The comments about difficulties for some potential audiences has been one of my concerns. Not so much the elderly because I don't think that demographic comprises much, if any, of my users. I am somewhat concerned about those with motor skill impairments and low-literacy users. I'm trying to weigh that against possible negative effects that breaking up the text may cause. As far as retention, is that affected by splitting text on slides? How do we decide the best way to chunk text? Are there certain instances where it's better to keep all of the text together and use a scrolling panel and other instances where it's ok to split the text to another slide?
Having a free day to poke around and catch up, and came across this post. I remember thinking there'd be a lot of pros/cons on this. I'm wondering if anyone does have opinions or research on best practices, so thought I'd bump this up.
4 Replies
Hi Jill,
That's a really good question, and I imagine you'll get a lot of Pros/Cons both ways.
Are you familiar with Jakob Nielesen? He's a well-know usability guru. Here's a post, admittedly older (2005) that came up as a hit when I did a cursory search on "is scrolling good ui"
Admittedly, this is about websites, but since Learners are accessing via browsers, I believe it still applies (IMHO of course). Note his comments on difficulties with some potential audiences: those with motor skill impairments, low-literacy users, and the elderly.
He also gives scroll bar design ideas, although we don't have much control over that in SL.
See an "on the other hand", re vertical scrolling, in this newer article (2012)...the section on long pages. Not sure they took into account the audiences discussed above.
So, there's a start to the conversation!
Thanks, Rebecca! Both articles were great reading.
The comments about difficulties for some potential audiences has been one of my concerns. Not so much the elderly because I don't think that demographic comprises much, if any, of my users. I am somewhat concerned about those with motor skill impairments and low-literacy users. I'm trying to weigh that against possible negative effects that breaking up the text may cause. As far as retention, is that affected by splitting text on slides? How do we decide the best way to chunk text? Are there certain instances where it's better to keep all of the text together and use a scrolling panel and other instances where it's ok to split the text to another slide?
Hi Jill and Heroes,
Having a free day to poke around and catch up, and came across this post. I remember thinking there'd be a lot of pros/cons on this. I'm wondering if anyone does have opinions or research on best practices, so thought I'd bump this up.
TIA everyone
I'd love input if anyone has some on this. Rebecca, thanks for bumping this up again.
Jill
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