Writing to be read on the web

Navigation: Main page » Website Design

Author: Deepak Sharma

Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.

Not so easy as it sounds

Good writing transverses between great ideas and conformity to the audience and medium it is meant for. Writing for the web can be as easy as you think but writing to be read is quite a challenge. The challenges here are manifold; this genre of writing should facilitate readers to understand initial messages in seconds, to move on with their intellectual curiosity fluidly, and should be guided by vivid pathways to the next choices.

In short, the web reader can be compared to a traveler, who enjoys efficient motion, regular nourishment, comfort stations, and the challenge of the new. To conform to the writing style this genre calls for, let's first understand the reading patterns of users on the web.

Do users read on the web? No, they skim, and scan

People seldom read Web pages word by word; rather, they scan the page , picking out individual words and sentences. It has been found in a survey that 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word. Users in their most encounters with a website commonly first navigate to the page they need. They do this by scanning and selecting — or searching — seldom by reading more than a few words.

That's not all. Even on content pages, users tend to skim, scan, and select. The reason: simply because having to read a lot is an obstacle to finding a particular piece of information. Research has already shown that reading from the web is about 25% slower than reading from paper. This is commonplace that many people find reading from the screen for extended periods to be difficult and tiring.

Users have been found to detest the promotional writing style with boastful subjective claims ("hottest ever") that is presently prevalent on the Web. Web users are damn busy: they want to get the facts straightaway. Also, credibility seems to suffer when users clearly see that the site exaggerates and overcommits.

Adapting the writing to the web: Adopting a style for optimal advantage

The heart of a website is the content. Users visit a website because they want the content — the information. Even in an e-commerce website, users are looking for information that would be helpful in their purchase making decision.

Here are a few suggestions on how to take mileage out a writing style that is simply web-friendly.

Write succinctly

Reading from computer screens is about 25% slower as compared to reading from paper. Even readers who don't know this human factors research usually say that they feel not well when reading online text. As a result, people don't wish to read a lot of text from computer screens: you ought to write 50% less text and not just 25% less because it's not only a matter of reading speed but also a matter of feeling good.

Select only what your audience need

The right content is the information that users look for. You can find out what users want and need by collecting data from them and by doing usability testing with them.

Before putting any content on the web, do a reality check: