Ultimately, users visit your website for its content. Everything else is just the backdrop.
Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability, p.99
Nielsen/Morkes study found:
Source: Alertbox, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
1. reading online is slower and harder
Reading from computer screens is tiring for the eyes and about 25 percent slower than reading from paper. No wonder people attempt to minimise the number of words they read. To the extent this reason explains users' behavior, they should read more when we get high-resolution, high-scanrate monitors in five years since lab studies have shown such screens to have the same readability as paper.
Source: Alertbox, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html
2. users need to feel active
The Web is a user-driven medium where users feel that they have to move on and click on things. One of our users said: "If I have to sit here and read the whole article, then I'm not productive." People want to feel that they are active when they are on the Web.
Source: Alertbox, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html
3. is this the right page?
Each page has to compete with hundreds of millions of other pages for the user's attention. Users don't know whether this page is the one they need or
whether some other page would be better: they are not willing to commit the investment of reading the page in the hope that it will be good. Most pages are in fact not worth the users' time, so experience encourages them to rely on information foraging. Instead of spending a lot of time on a single page, users move between many pages and try to pick the most tasty segments of each.Source: Alertbox, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html
4. lots of information out there: too little time
Modern life is hectic and people simply don't have time to work too hard for their information. As one of our test users said, "If this [long page with blocks of text] happened to me at work, where I get 70 emails and 50 voicemails a day, then that would be the end of it. If it doesn't come right out at me, I'm going to give up on it."
Source: Alertbox, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html
Rules for good writing learnt at school are still relevant online.
Also
See: Strunk's Elements of Style
"A common thread between conciseness, scannability, and objectivity is that each reduces the user's cognitive load, which results in faster, more efficient processing of information."
Source: John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen, http://www.useit.com./papers/webwriting/rewriting.html
"Every sentence, every phrase, every word has to fight for its life"
Crawford Killian, Writing for the Web
"Krug's third law of usability: get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half what's left"
Steve Krug Don't Make Me Think, p. 45
"Write 50 percent less text."
Jakob Nielsen Designing Web Usability, p. 101
We all know happy talk when we see it: it's the introductory text that's supposed to welcome us to the site and tell us how great it is, or to tell us what we're about to see in the section we've just entered.
Source: Steve Krug Don't Make Me Think, p. 46
Removing the introductory paragraph would bring more of the content onto the user's screen.
The other major source of needless words is instructions. The main thing you need to know about instructions is that no one is going to read them--at least not until after repeated attempts at 'muddling through' have failed.
Source: Steve Krug Don't Make Me Think, p. 46
Source: Verizon.com site survey
| From this | To this | Result |
| The following questionnaire is designed to provide us with information that will help us improve the site and make it more relevant to your needs. | Please help us improve this site. | 25 words reduced to 6 |
| Please select your answers from the drop-down menus and radio buttons below. | REMOVE | 13 words reduced to 0
Users don't need to be told how to complete an online survey. If they do, the won't know what a 'drop-down box' or 'radio button' is anyway. |
| The questionnaire should only take you 2-3 minutes to complete. | It will take you 2-3 minutes to complete this survey | Same number of
words used, but takes up less space on the page.
It doesn't hurt to indicate how much time the survey will take. |
| At the bottom of this form you can choose to leave your name, address, and telephone number. If you leave your name and number you may be contacted in the future to participate in a survey to help us improve this site. | REMOVE | 42 words reduced to 0
It doesn't belong here. Put it at the end of the survey (trim the text too) where I can act on it. |
| If you have comments or concerns that require a response please contact Customer Service. | Do not use this form for comments or concerns that require a response. Contact Customer Service |
An additional two words, but
|
Source: adapted from Steve Krug Don't Make Me Think, pp. 47-48
Users know marketing speak when they see it.
A study by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen showed that overall usability of web content is significantly increased by writing objectively.
Source: http://www.useit.com./papers/webwriting/rewriting.html and Jakob Nielsen Designing Web Usability, p. 105.
| Original text | Using objective language | Objective, concise and scannable |
| Nebraska is filled with internationally recognised attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, six of the best-attended attractions in Nebraska were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,644). | Nebraska has several attractions. In 1996, some of the most-visited places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,644). |
In 1996, six of the most visited places in Nebraska were:
|
| Usability improvement | 27% more usable | 124% more usable |
Source: Jakob Nielsen Designing Web Usability, p. 105.
keep paragraphs short
break up text chunks with
need to reverse our writing structure for the web
Source: Jakob Nielsen http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9606.html
"A page title is microcontent and needs to be a pearl of clarity. You get 40 to 60 characters to explain what people will find on your page. Unless the title makes it absolutely clear what the page is about, users will never open it."
Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability, p. 123.
first words used in a title become very important
first words used in a title become very important
busy backgrounds and lack of contrast hamper legibility
colours for unvisited and visited links
When non-standard link colours are used, users lose the ability to clearly see which parts of the site they have already visited and which parts remain to be explored.
Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability, p. 62
multiple styles of hyperlinking on one page can confuse users
small coloured squares are links at top left but not at bottom of page
Source: Monash Faculty of Art and Design
clickable objects
Source: Monash University
Source: One Art (note: design now changed)
must add to the communication of information
all of these animated gifs were on the one page, some used more than once!
Source: All About Lawns
if you are going to use multimedia formats