Eye Tracking Laboratory

University of Pavia

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L6 - Page Size and Delivery Media

Issue Definition

Content segmentation is a key issue in building e-learning courses. The most important factors to be taken into account are the Page Size available and the Delivery Media to be used. Both have a strong influence on each other.

Guideline Text

1. Big content chunks should be split into smaller ‘units’ whenever possible:
1.a Each new content ‘unit’ should fit into the Page Size available;
1.b Course granularity should be respected, so that content segmentation should not bring to change in pre-defined learning ‘turning points’.

2. Scrolling should be preferably avoided:
2.a Scrolling should be allowed whenever truncating the content would affect negatively its fruition. For instance,
• a QuickTime VR movie, where a panorama is presented, would require often a suitable large displaying device that is seldom available;
• a large picture squeezed in one dimension cannot be correctly viewed by simply zooming it out.

3. The content ‘units’ size should fit the displaying requirements of the delivery device:
3.a Mobile devices (e.g. PDA, cell phones, notebook…) are characterised by strong limitations in the page size. This should be taken into account when choosing the content to be delivered.

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