Writing for the Web; Internet Users Don't Read, They Scan

I was recently reminded of a study that Jakob Nielsen published several years ago on how browsers view web pages. Nielsen, long considered to be the leading guru of web usability, found that only 16% of visitors read a page word-for-word while 79% only scan the content.

What are the implications for your site? If you want to make it relevant to your visitors you should make it scannable through the effective use of:

• Meaningful Headings & Sub-headings(not cute or clever ones)
• Highlighted keywords (these can include hypertext links, bolding, italics or color variations)
• Bulleted or numbered lists
• A single idea per paragraph
• An inverted pyramid style that starts with the conclusion first
• 50% of the words that you would use in a similar paper document
  excerpted from How Users Read on the Web by Jakob Nielsen
  

Keep in mind that reading from a computer monitor is 25% slower than reading from a paper document and that visitors are often more task oriented and deadline driven (at least for business use) when accessing the web.

So use less, say more and you must not only understand the objectives of your web visitors but honor those objectives as well.

Thanks for reading...

Oh yeah, here's a great Free resource provided by Sun Microsystems and based on Mr. Nielsen's work.

tom.gray@gemsolv.com
GeMSolv.com