Which Content Works Best For User Experience
Does Your Site Content Actually Get Read?
Hi Folks
I read an interesting article today about what your site readers actually read. You will be surprised by this as I was. Here is my interpretation based on the information contained in that article.
You visit a great website. It has a great design and easy navigation. You easily find what you're looking for and reach the page that's relevant to your search term. Then you don't find the information you where looking for. Bad content is the recipe for a disastrous website experience.
All the other things – website design, navigation, SEO etc are all geared to bring traffic to the content. However if the content is bad, all your efforts in promoting it are wasted. What can you do to rectify this? Simple, you test your content before you publish. Testing your content is an important step in order to achieve your website goals.
What You Should Look For When Testing Your Site Content
To provide your readers with the best website experience, you need to know how people read online. Once you understand how users interpret and access content, it becomes easier to structure and present the information better.
Online behaviour of website users is often paradoxical. They visit websites for information but they actually read very little of the actual text. Numerous research studies have proved that the majority of website users simply scan the content from the top left in an F-pattern. It means that they only see words on top and left side of the page. It was found that they will hardly ever read left right, left right, left right as in a Z pattern.
In a recent study it was found that in the average time users stay on a page, they only read about 28% of the words written on the page. It was also found that the first two words of any headline, and link need to contain the maximum information. Some of the other places where first two words of the content gain maximum weight are:
- Product listings
- Table of Contents
- Question lists in the FAQ pages
- Bulleted or numbered lists
- Steps of a task
- Checklists etc
In another recent study it was found that the first 11 characters of a link or list text are most important. If users find the cues to what they will find in the link straightaway, they are more likely to click on it and read it.
While there are many such things to keep in mind while writing your content, in the end, it is the user experience that matters. Hence, the main object of content testing is to see:
- Whether the content is appropriate and suitable for your audience?
- Whether your readers can understand what is written?
- Do the readers find the content helpful and accurate?
- Do they like the content?
There you go folks and I'm willing to wager not very many of you will have known these facts. Now that you do you can now go on to publish better content bearing in mind that it might never actually get read from beginning to end.
Enjoy your day and be successful.
Robert Allan
Recent Comments
95
I’m one of those people who don’t think about what the experience of readers would look like. Normally after writing a content I go through it to make sure all I had in mind was expressed not thinking about my readers’s experience or how much disposable reading time available to the them.
Your article is surely an eye opener. And I thank you for it. It will help me improve my future content.
Hi Cal and thank you for reading and your input.
You don't have to take what I say as being the absolute truth of how people read anything but its good to know that there have been several studies on the subject and mostly they come to the same conclusion.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
Robert
Honestly there are a lot of websites out there that the interface and designs are top notch, but then the content is really bad. I believe that the content of every website should be clear and even a layman should be able to know the message they are passing accross.
I entirely agree with you Opemiposi.
Hope you took something away with you that you know will help you with your own website content.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
Robert
Interesting read...I believe it to be true some what. Looks like a heat map the image you displayed.
I also think people skim the article reading the table of contents, the title, images and if something catches their eye they stop and read from that point. If they find that part good they may read the article from top to bottom unless it starts boring or overwhelming them Just my thoughts.
Ken
Your thoughts are very welcome Ken.
Everybody will have their own take on the info in my blog .
I just put the info down as I saw it and based on how I read anything.
There will be an element of truth in the info so its up to each of us how we interpret it.
Thank you for your input.
Robert
Rebecca surely in your experience you read from top left and scan down the left side of the page.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Robert
Hi Martin, thank you for stopping by.
I think that people are naturally looking to the left for many things as they go about their daily lives and its not just reading.
But with reading its only natural when you open a book you will look at the title and then your eyes will also turn to the left to start reading.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
Robert
Wow! What eye-opening information! Thanks so much for sharing this amazing and helpful information. It's going to help me with all my future web design efforts!
Happy to pass on any info I come across that I know will educate the membership Bob.
Hope your Tuesday is going well.
Robert
You are welcome and thanks again for taking timeout to read my blog.
Onwards and Upwards.
Robert
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Very interesting, thanks for sharing Robert.
And this is why it helps to make our contents readable and easy on the eyes by breaking them down into smaller paragraphs as Kyle said in the lessons.
Hi Alice, thank you for your visit.
Yes indeed and remember those all important first two words for each paragraph.
Enjoy your Wednesday Alice.
Robert