Online reading strategies –readers’ and writers’ perspectives
Since common trends show the shifting towards digitization of resources, many discussions are taking place to analyze the quality and comfort of online reading.
Reading online isn't the same as reading in print.
- When reading a book, we assume that the work is authoritative.
- In the printed material, texts might include pictures, drawings, tables, or diagrams.
- When reading the printed resources, we do it sequentially, consistently word by word.
Regarding articles on the Net, we have much lighter attitude towards authority of the published resources.
Digital material provides us with hyperlinks, videos, interactive diagrams, or built-in
quizzes. This represent a fundamental change in the reading experience by allowing to switch reading resources with one click, reading and interacting with the content.Reading online is different - we read much quicker, looking for keywords, and in many cases, we are scanning pages trying to evaluate the resource.
Critique of online reading.
Researchers are trying to estimate the comprehension level in online reading - concerns are expressed regarding the “depth of reading’’ and “depth of learning”. It was noted that adds, hyperlinks and pop-ups are distracting readers’ attention from the topic making entire reading process quite tiring.
Others are advising reading online material twice, first time – just browsing the text and checking the main ideas and keywords, and then reading the resource properly.
It seems that screens are encouraging more skimming behaviour, and it is seen as a new reading style: scrolling, scanning, speed-reading, and glancing. It can be explained by an overload of information and availability of numerous resources about any topic.
Actually, online reading exhausts our mental and physical resources more quickly than the printed pages:
- Tiredness from the constant necessity to filter hyperlinks, videos, animations, and other distractions;
- Our eyes might get tired from shifting screens, layouts, multiple columns, colours, contrasts, and fonts;
· We are constantly adjusting ourselves, and it takes our mental and physical energy.
Considering all the above, I have several questions left which need more exploration:
- Is our audience ready for online reading and what needs to be done to help them?
- Is technology providing quality tools to support online reading?
- How will we read in the future?
For now, let’s apply best practices when creating our posts
When creating our posts, we hope that the audience will understand and appreciate our message. It does not mean that every visitor will read every single word we wrote but we must write effectively and deliver information in a way that our visitors can quickly find what is the most important and valuable for them.
This can be achieved by applying best practices:
- Attractive and clear headlines;
- Write in active voice;
- Quickly get to the point;
- Keep paragraphs short;
- Use bulleted lists;
- Apply bold text to key information;
- Each sentence must have an idea.
I believe it sounds very familiar. Yes, we’ve heard this from Kyle many times during training sessions. All what we need – to follow the best practices.
Wishing all of us creative and effective writing,
Nadja
Recent Comments
18
Very powerful post, Nadja!
You have made some very interesting points there.
To be honest, I really prefer books but I'll settle for the simple Kindle as well. (I have a fairly old one) I can't read for too long when I am on my PC. This is because I have to be looking across (parallel to the floor) at my screen resulting in eye-strain.
With the tablet, just like a book, I can hold it however it suits me. My eyes are mostly looking down and I am more relaxed.
There are no distractions from any of the things you have mentioned on the tablet.
There is a war for attention from all sides and that's why our approach is to utilize the best-practice to compensate for that. I often wonder what the future will be like for us writers...We have to think about that as well. Even though many will skim through our words, we still must write well using the approach you mentioned. This is mainly because different people will be reading different sections of our article. Hmmm, so no shortcuts to be had:).
That's why video is coming to the fore now. People just don't seem to want to read for themselves. A true price to pay for the advancement of devices and technology. Everyone is competing for our attention and its grabbers are all over.
David
Thank you, David,
Very thoughtful comment. I know so many variables are still unknown. I hope that people will write and people will read. I think there must be a solution which will simulate a traditional reading, and it will solve some ergonomic issues: paper-thin and flexible screens (?!) - coming up soon, multiscreen devices (?!) - just guessing. Anyway, thank you for the nice comment.
Nadja,
Great list of things to contemplate for our pages!
I'm now about half finished with my first keyword page, and I can already tell it's too long, taking too much time to get to the point.... I hate to cut those hard-fought words, but it has to be done, so I'm hiding from it now, dealing with emails, comments and new posts.
As you can see, yours (only my third this afternoon) is exactly in my current sweet spot -- a concrete list to take back to my page, to guide my re-write (Oh! So painful!)
Tim
Thank you for your time and attention to my post. Well, there are quite a number of issues we need to address with online reading and writing. I am trying to remind myself how to handle my posts and pages.
I agree with the skimming part and constantly do it myself, especially if I am reading a very long article and it is 'heavy' reading. If something catches my eye I go back and read it more carefully!
Thank you for the comment. The issues of online reading catch all of us... I hope that better solutions will be developed soon since online resources are growing. Let's hope...
Great post!
I think MS and Google agree with you .
Some of the browsers such as Edge have a reading button that makes pages (even this one) look more like you are reading from a book. Also, I love my touch screen zooming with two fingers.
I find that those two features help me a lot.
Thank you for the comment. It is very important that tools we are using are effective and comfortable. I believe that new technology will deliver new solutions.
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Very helpful information. Thanks!
I am glad you liked it.