2.4 Subjects

We recruited 30 subjects. They were organized in 3 groups of 10 subjects each. Each subject performed the task for one of the treatments of zoom period. The vast majority of subjects are students,with a high degree of experience with computers in general, and familiarity with browsing tools in particular. The table below summarizes the answers to the background survey. In this table the abbreviated headings are:

Under browser usage, >1 indicates browser is used more than once a day, <1 between once a week and once a day. Note that the corresponding question had answers for less frequent use, but no subject uses web browsers less frequently than once a week.
Under both knowledge categories, E is expert, I is intermediate, and N is novice

Note that "computer expert" indicates either a computer professional or a computer science student.

Treatment

Gender

Student?

Computer Expert?

Browser usage

Browser knowledge

Interface knowledge

1 - 0.00 s

2 - 0.25 s

3 - 0.50 s

M	F
9	1
8	2
5	5

*Yes*	No
10	0
7	3
4	6

*Yes*	No
10	0
2	8
9	1

>1	<1
9	1
8	2
7	3

E	I	N
3	7	0
3	5	2
5	5	0

E	I	N
5	5	0
3	5	2
7	3	0

Examining this table, one can see that the 2^nd treatment group has substantially fewer computer professionals. However, since most of them are relatively frequent web users and have at least intermediate knowledge of web browsers and interfaces, we believe that this should not skew the results for the tasks they are doing. This skew is due to each member of the group finding subjects for one treatment. Random assignment of treatments would be better in future studies.

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