Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Seeking clarity on consistency (31 Mar 2005) Van der Geest and Loorbach's study indicates that users do notice consistency within and across pages of a site. Users are prepared to and do notice and exploit some types of consistency within a Web system (color, navigation structure). However, their findings also suggest that users do not take advantage of certain types of information that experts might identify as critical to usable consistency. For example, users may fail to exploit other seemingly obvious connecting information, such as the logo. That said, it seems critical that standards intending to promote usable consistency with local variability should promote the use of color as a cue, both to group and differentiate page elements and site sections. However, since color is so powerful, clear and appropriate guidance for use of color is critical to building an effective standard. Article URL: http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/Mar05.asp Read 41 more articles from Human Factors International sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Hybrid CSS Dropdowns     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy