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Web writing tip. That was 16 characters. Please forgive me.

Apr 27

One of our clients brought to our attention a great article on the way people read websites and, more importantly, what that means for web writing.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen tested how well visitors understand the intent of a website's links or headlines, based on their first 11 characters. He also tested how well the visitors found what they were looking for when they relied on only those characters.

People apparently read about that much of a link or headline or words in a list and then back off, scanning as they go.

One of the recommendations he makes to best serve your audience: Get to the point quickly.

Also:

  • Use plain language
  • Use specific terminology
  • Follow naming conventions
  • Use action-oriented terms

If you are still reading my blog post: I'd definitely recommend the entire article to the content writers at your organization.

posted by Mary Harrington
4/27/2009 4:09 PM 

Location: Blogs Mary Harrington's Posts
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Re: Web writing tip. That was 16 characters. Please forgive me.

Mary,

Thanks for leading me to Nielsen's pithy and, somewhat, disturbing and enlightening article.

Disturbing because his limited and revealing study causes web content writers to focus even more on the smallest amount of information communicating the greatest amount of "bounce".

Enlightening, ironically, for pretty much the same reasons.

However, I've picked up a new, 11-character, possibility -- n a n o c o n t e n t.

Huzzah!

By Jessan Dunn Otis on   5/20/2009 5:33 PM

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