TO: High-Level Business Executives
FROM: The Executive Whisper
Apologies to 8th grade English teachers everywhere. Prose are history. So are long sentences. And those grammar rules drilled into our heads growing up. Many should be broken.
Clever writing is also dead. Sorry to all brilliant headline writers trying to catch readers’ attention with puns, double entendres and misdirection.
A new – more effective – way to write online has been confirmed by countless marketing and usability studies.
Today, web users:
- skim, scan, and select
- browse
- forage
- quick glances and occasional very brief stops
- read a little at a time
- mostly in short burst
- grab and get on towards the goal
And web users don’t read sequentially. Long narratives and anecdotes should be saved for the print world.
Every. Word. Counts.
Even word placement matters. Critical, information-carrying words should be at the beginning of sentences. Even if you must write in passive voice.
Why? The web experience is fundamentally different than print – and different than how most writers were trained:
- Web is an active medium. Users are engaged; actively making choices; and goal-oriented.
- Print is passive. Reader is relaxed. Not making choices. Willing to be told a story.
- Computer screens project light directly into and therefore fatigue users’ eyes quicker. Users can’t read for long stretches. Printed page reflects light, therefore easier on the eyes, so readers can read longer.
- Web users are more impatient (think frustrations with high load times) than print readers.
- Web users often arrive at a page through search. Thus, they’re seeking information. Not looking for long narrative.
Clever writing is antithetical to user experience. It makes readers waste time filtering out the hyperbole or “cleverness” to get at the facts.
Example: Headlines should predict what users will get when they invest time to click and read. Cute yet unclear wording doesn’t aid users’ understanding. It wastes time.
- Also, headlines often appear by themselves in lists of topics or search results. Users are less likely to click on cute phraseology than specific, direct text that explains the subsequent content.
The new rules:
- Headlines and Subheads: Clear not clever. Move all information-carrying words to the front.
- Introductory paragraph: Skip the welcome and warm up. Just tell what page is about. Or eliminate.
- Rest of text should tell users only what they want/need to know. Every phrase should add value. Edit out tangents and flowery writing.
- Ever word should add value. Eliminate most simple modifiers, “a” and “the.”
- Use Inverted Pyramid style. Start by telling users conclusion (like good newspaper reporter).
- Deliver “chunks” of information. Not sentences.
- Use familiar words – not made-up terms or jargon to avoid wasting users’ time translating.
- Also, readers more likely to use familiar words when creating search queries. Proprietary terms NOT searched as often. Example: Use “word of mouth” instead of “viralization”
- Use bulleted lists, bold, italics, and underlining to highlight points.
- Edit out redundancies.
- Avoid wasteful flourishes like “to summarize” or “in my opinion.”
- Edit out redundancies.
- Use numerals like “23″ not “twenty three” to aid users scanning for information and facts.
Good writers will adapt. Others will complain about it and find fault with web users.
What’s next? Google book search and Amazon’s Kindle will change the way books are written too.
Resources:
The Authority is Jakob Nielsen
Great example and illustration at MIT Labs
