I personally think that, in the end of the day, is not just about just
being "politically correct" when talking about the users (well...
being respectful and polite is always nice!), but also about
communicating clearly their background, needs and intentions.
I'd go with Becky "checklist" to start, especially the first 2
items:
1. Levels of technical literacy (both web and computer - separately)
2. Literacy level (reading level)
That being said, it would all be relative to the task at hand: a
Physics PhD could be considered "technically illiterate" on real
estate market (poor analogy, I know!)
Which brings me to this really interesting article I read recently:
"Understanding Non-Literacy as a Barrier to Mobile Phone
Communication", from Nokia Research Center:
* Emerging markets have higher numbers of textually non-literate
people than more developed markets
* Effective use of mobile phone features requires an
understanding of textual prompts
* Contact management and asynchronous communication in particular
presents challenges for textually non-literate people
* Solutions can be categorized as improvements to the phone, the
ecosystem and to the operator infrastructure
Read the full article at:
http://research.nokia.com/bluesky/non-literacy-001-2005/index.html
...
{ Itamar Medeiros } Information Designer
http://designative.info/
http://www.autodesk.com/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29779
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