Summary: Studies of how users read on the Web found they scan the text that they do not actually read: instead. A report of five writing that is different discovered that a sample internet site scored 58% higher in measured usability with regards to was written concisely, 47% higher when the text was scannable, and 27% higher when it was printed in an objective style rather than the promotional style found in the control condition and lots of current website pages. Combining these three changes into a site that is single was concise, scannable, and objective at the same time lead to 124% higher measured usability.
Unfortunately, this paper is written in a print writing style and is somewhat too academic in style. We realize this really is bad, nevertheless the paper was written as the traditional means of reporting on a research study. We have a summary that is short is more designed for online reading.
Introduction
“Really good writing - that you do not see much of that on the Web,” said one of our test participants. And our general impression is that most internet users would agree. Our studies declare that current Web writing often does not support users in achieving their main goal: to locate useful information as quickly as you can.
We have been Web that is running usability since 1994 Nielsen 1994b, Nielsen and Sano 1994, Nielsen 1995. Our studies have been similar to almost every other Web usability work (e.g., Shum 1996, Spool et al. 1997) and now have mainly looked at site architecture, navigation, search, page design, layout, graphic elements and style, and icons. Even so, we have collected user that is many about the content during this long group of studies. Indeed, we now have come to understand that content is king in the user’s mind: When asked for feedback on an internet page, users will comment on the high quality and relevance of this content to a much greater extent than they will certainly touch upon navigational issues or perhaps the page elements that people consider to be “user interface” (as opposed to simple information). Similarly, when a typical page comes up, users focus their attention on the center associated with window where they see the body text before they bother looking over headerbars or other navigational elements.
We have derived three main content-oriented conclusions from our four years’ of Web usability studies Nielsen 1997a:
- users do not continue reading the Web; instead they scan the pages, attempting to pick out a sentences that are few even elements of sentences to obtain the information they need
- users do not like long, scrolling pages: they choose the text to be short and also to the purpose
- users detest something that seems like marketing fluff or overly hyped language (”marketese”) and prefer information that is factual.
This point that is latter well illustrated by the following quote from a client survey we ran in the Sun website:
“One piece of advice, folks: Why don’t we try not to be so gratuitous and self-inflating. Beginning answers to sense that is common such as “Will Sun support my older Solaris platform?” with answers such as “Sun is exceptionally devoted to. ” and “Solaris is a operating that is leading in today’s business world. ” doesn’t give me, as an engineer, a lot of confidence in your capability. I would like to hear fact, not platitudes and self-serving ideology. Hell, have you thought to just paint your home page red under the moving banner of, “Computers around the globe, Unite beneath the Sun motherland that is glorious!”
Even though we have gained some comprehension of Web content from studies that mainly concerned higher-level Web design issues, we felt that we necessary to learn more about Web writing in order to advise our content creators. We therefore designed a series of studies that specifically looked at how users read website pages.
Overview of Studies
We conducted three studies for which an overall total of 81 users read Web pages. The very first two studies were qualitative and exploratory and were geared towards generating understanding of how users read and what they like and dislike. The third study was a measurement study targeted at quantifying the possibility advantages of some of the most promising writing styles identified in the 1st two studies. All three studies were conducted during the summer of 1997 when you look at the SunSoft usability laboratories in Menlo Park, CA.
A major goal in the initial study would be to compare the reading behavior of technical and non-technical users. Despite the fact that we had conducted some earlier studies with non-technical participants, most of our studies had used highly technical users. Also, given the nature of our site, almost all of the data collected from site surveys was given by technical users.
In Study 1, we tested an overall total of 11 users: 6 end-users and 5 technical users. The main difference between technical and non-technical users seemed to play out in participants’ familiarity and expertise with search tools and hypertext. The users that are technical better informed exactly how to do searches compared to the end-users were. Technical users also seemed more aware of and much more thinking about following hypertext links. At least one end-user said he could be sometimes hesitant to use hypertext for concern with getting lost.
Apart from those differences, there appeared as if no major variations in how technical and non-technical users approached reading on line. Both groups desired text that is scannable short text, summaries, etc.
The tasks were classic directed tasks similar to those utilized in the majority of our previous Web usability studies. Users were typically taken up to your home page of a specific website and then asked to get specific info on the website. This method was taken fully to avoid the well-known problems when users have to find things by searching the entire Web PollockWeb that is entire and Hockley 1997. The following is an example task:
| you’ve planned a vacation to Las Vegas and would like to learn about a local restaurant run by chef Charlie Trotter. You heard it absolutely was found in the MGM Grand hotel and casino, but you want extra information in regards to the restaurant. You start by taking a look at the website pay someone to do my homework for Restaurants & Institutions magazine at: http://www.rimag.com |
Hint: try to find stories on casino foodservice
Make an effort to find out:
-what this article said in regards to the restaurant
-where food that is most is served in the riverboat casino
Unfortunately, the net is currently so hard to use that users wasted enormous amounts of time looking for the page that is specific contained the response to the question. Even though regarding the intended page, users often could not get the answer since they did not begin to see the relevant line. As a result, a lot of Study 1 ended up repeating navigation issues that people knew from previous studies and now we got fewer results than desired associated with actual reading of content.
Users Would You Like To Search
Upon visiting each site, the majority of of the participants desired to begin with a keyword search. “an excellent search engine is key for an excellent website,” one participant said. If search engines was not available, some of the participants said, they would try using the browser’s “Find” command.
Sometimes participants needed to be asked to attempt to find the information without the need for a search tool, because searching was not a main focus for this study.