“In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. (Update: a newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.)”As I have discovered to my sorrow ... so I tend to write long emails with paragraphs of one sentence ... at least people read part of each sentence that way.
Read the whole BRIEF post from Writing, Clear and Simple with some excellent tips on writing emails and for the web.
That was an interesting link, but I strongly disagree with the author who recommends highlighting key words in the text. That is one convention that will make me automatically skip the article.
ReplyDeleteI stopped reading one of my (former) favorite blogs because they started doing that very thing. I find it insulting, distracting and condescending.
Please don't start doing that, Julie -- I beg of you!!!
If you go to the Jakob Neilson link you see that its written in 1997. I wonder how much has changed today? Some seems spot on, especially for all the newsletters I get. But Tante has a point -if some of these tactics are used too much I just turn away as well. As with everything... moderation is key.
ReplyDeleteYou are safe ... I will never highlight words in text. It offends the graphic designer in me! :-D
ReplyDelete