One piece of feedback that stood out and required prompt attention was the need for a unified layout. Since the user testing was based on the usability of interactive elements, it became clear that visual elements like design needed to be consistent. This was a point raised not by one but by all of my peers, prompting me to start collecting decisions related to design accordingly.

During my research, I identified several layout and design principles that could enhance readability. Some elements that I considered applicable to my website design included:

• 1. Using a minimum of 12pt or 14pt for text size.
• 2. Avoiding formatting texts in large-width columns.
• 3. Using an off-white color for the background, such as light gray or tan, and dark gray for text instead of pure black.
• 4. Choosing a plain, evenly spaced sans serif font like Arial or Comic Sans.
• 5. Maintaining between-line spacing of 1.5 points.
• 6. Keeping the white space between paragraphs at least 1.5 times the space between lines of text.
• 7. Using left-justified text with a ragged right edge.

The general feedback collected for each web page included:

• Bionic reading - The font could be made a bit bolder.
• Cursor - A round cursor becomes a distraction when moving beyond the sentence.
• Blur - Applying blur at the sentence level could lead to an overwhelming amount of scrolling due to increased content volume.

Overall, a unified font choice was deemed necessary.

Taking these feedback points into consideration, the resulting design changes were as follows:

For the bionic reading and most text backgrounds, I standardized the color to gray, and the font size and line spacing were unified according to design principles. In the blur experiment, I reduced scrolling by applying blur at the paragraph level instead of sentence level.

Observing participants using the cursor experiment, I gleaned that people read words faster than expected during user testing. This observation led me to question whether highlighting at the sentence level rather than the word level might be more effective. A cursor highlighting words must move as quickly as the reading speed, which could potentially cause discomfort due to the constant need to move the mouse.

Therefore, I created a 'highlight sentence' website where the cursor highlights text at the sentence level when hovered over. The outcome is demonstrated in the video below.

Feedback and Reflection

This week, receiving design feedback from my peers taught me the importance of listening to diverse opinions and integrating them into my work as a student. I also realized that while it is vital to evolve design ideas through quantifiable results, observing how users interact with the website is equally important. From this standpoint, I discovered new methods of user testing.