Dear Colleagues,
I endorse the comments of my colleague Stephen when he cites Don
Norman's work. Systems should be designed to be as easy as possible
to follow, to minimize error.
I heard on a news bulletin this morning that there is a rule (law?)
in Florida that responses are always supposed to be to the right of
the option. Is this true? It sounds like a good way to enhance
clarity.
Stuart
> Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2000 13:17:31 -0600
> From: "Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: TIPS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Following directions
>
>
> Stephen Black wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Rick Froman wrote:
> >
> > > You don't have to suspect. Check it out for yourself at:
> > >
> > > http://www.sun-sentinel.com/elections/palmbeachballot.htm
> >
> > Very revealing, Rick. Thank you.
> >
> > 'Tis true. You would definitely not be the sharpest knife in the
> > drawer to ignore those arrows and vote for the wrong person.
> >
>
> If you have ever seen one of these ballots it is not so simple. They
> are slid into a slot and gets "locked" in place by hooking the holes in
> the ballot card over two little plastic knobs (okay, not the best
> description but close enough!). Unfortunately, there is some give so it
> can shift a bit up or down. Thus, the arrows don't always line up
> directly with the hole to punch but sometimes hit the line above or
> below. Usually, the candidates are spaced fairly far apart and only on
> one side of the page so that there is not question as to which candidate
> one is voting for.
>
> On our ballots, the candidates for office including our new dead senator
> were only on one side of the page. Some of the resolutions concerning
> our sewer district resembled the two sided Florida ballot. It was very
> confusing indeed to know what you you were punching. I had to pull out
> the ballot several times to double-check that I had punched the right
> hole for a resolution. If you accidentally discovered upon double
> checking (which I doubt that most individuals do) that you punched the
> wrong hole, you would have to go and have the ballot invalidated and get
> a new ballot (it is actually a fairly complicated process). If you have
> folks who have been waiting in line for a couple of hours to vote, there
> is a good deal of social pressure to just "let it slide".
>
> Finally, I would mention that a fair number of voters in the Florida
> vote are senior citizens and elderly. Thus, they may be contending with
> the visual difficulties that are correlated with old age. For them, the
> ballot would have been a perceptual nightmare.
>
> Hope everyone is having a great semester!
>
> Linda
>
> --
> Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor - Psychology
>
> http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
___________________________________________________
Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: (819)822-9600
Department of Psychology, Extension 2402
Bishop's University, Fax: (819)822-9661
3 Route 108 East,
Lennoxville, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Quebec J1M 1Z7,
Canada.
Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page:
http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
___________________________________________________
