Summary: Studies of how users continue reading the internet found that they don’t actually read: instead, they scan the text. A report of five different writing styles found that a sample Web site scored 58% higher in measured usability with regards to was written concisely, 47% higher when the text was scannable, and 27% higher with regards to was printed in a target style as opposed to the promotional style utilized in the control condition and several current Web pages. Combining these three changes into a single site that was concise, scannable, and objective at exactly the same time led to 124% higher measured usability.
Unfortunately, this paper is written in a print writing style and is somewhat too academic however you like. We know this can be bad, however the paper was written whilst the way that is traditional of on a research study. We now have a summary that is short is more suited for online reading.
Introduction
“Really good writing – you don’t see much of that on the net,” said one of our test participants. And our impression that is general is most Web users would agree. Our studies claim that current Web writing often does not support users in achieving their main goal: to find information that is useful quickly as you possibly can.
We’ve been Web that is running usability since 1994 Nielsen 1994b, Nielsen and Sano 1994, Nielsen 1995. Our research reports have been similar to most other Web usability work (e.g., Shum 1996, Spool et al. 1997) and have mainly looked at site architecture, navigation, search, page design, layout, graphic elements and magnificence, and icons. Even so, we now have collected user that is many concerning the content with this long series of studies. Indeed, we now have come to recognize that content is king when you look at the user’s mind: When asked for feedback on an internet page, users will touch upon the quality and relevance associated with content to a much greater extent than they’re going to touch upon navigational issues or the page elements that people consider to be “user interface” (instead of simple information). Similarly, when a full page comes up, users focus their attention from the center of the window where they read the body text before they bother looking over headerbars or other navigational elements. Continue reading “Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: Simple tips to Write for the Web”
