Understanding Your Audience and How they Read on the Web

How Readers Read on the Web

Studies have shown that 79 percent of Web users scan pages; only 11 percent actually read word-by-word.

Why?   Primarily because it saves time. It takes 25 percent longer to read a document word-by-word on screen than in print.  As a Web writer, you have to acknowledge this fact and write for capability, or you have to make your material so compelling that people will want to take the extra time to read it word-by-word!  Because users scan, they tend to not fully read streams of text. Instead, they scan the text and pick out keywords, sentences, and paragraphs of interest while skipping over those parts of the text they care less about.

Elements that enhance scanning include:

• headings
• large type
• bold text
• bulleted lists
• graphics
• captions
• topic sentences
• tables of contents.

When a Web page first comes up, a user will focus their attention on the center of the window, where he will read the body text before he bothers to look over header bars or other navigational elements.  When scanning the page, the reader's eye first scans the middle, then the left, and then the right of the page. You need to take this into account when you design your page.

Write for your audience!

Always look at your content through the eyes of your intended audience. Don't present
your information in the way you understand it, but instead develop your content so that it can be
understood by the people you want to reach. Try to put aside your insider knowledge and your
preconceptions.

Additional points to keep in mind:

• Use the appropriate level of detail for your audience. Don't assume that your audience
  knows what you're talking about; explain everything.
• Avoid professional jargon. If you use acronyms, be sure to spell them out the first time you use them on each Web page. If you must use a word or term your audience might not understand, explain it simply. Make sure that words and phrases mean the same thing throughout your site.
• Remove anything on your site that doesn't make any difference from your audience's
  perspective. Only make the points that your audience will care about. In other words, remove any excess fluff.  (See Cut the Fluff for more on this topic)
• Try to anticipate and clearly answer all of your audience's natural questions.
• Provide a point-of-contact for additional information.