Lower-Literacy Usability Benefits Everyone

Jacob Nielsen’s Lower-Literacy Users article offers great tips to improve usability for web users with low literacy.

In his study he notes that both low and high-literacy users achieved a higher success rate and greater satisfaction in less time when testing a website that was redesigned using his guidelines.

This shows that you can craft a design that is more accessible to all users without sacrificing the quality of your news/message.

This is extremely important for political campaigns. The improved usability will encourage visitors to remain at your site longer. It’s in our interest to make the content accessible. Perhaps many web users, regardless of literacy, are visiting a campaign site just straighten out all the political spin from the offline campaign. In that case, a streamlined design, simple navigation, and prioritized information are precisely the means to achieve their goal.

Nielsen’s tips to improve usability for lower-literacy users are simply good business sense for campaigns to reach out to all of their consistent and would-be supporters.