christine cawthorne's geekeasy talk: how you read on the web (and why you should care)

How you read on the web

...and why you should care

Christine Cawthorne

• Web copywriter

Eye up mate

eye eye cap’n

What do your eyes do when you read?

smooth operator

You don’t read as smoothly as you

think you do

space hopper

Your eyes bounce around the text

boiiiiing

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/WordRecognition.aspx

oops, forgetful

You can drop 30% of the words

when reading!

Bouma baby

The shape of the word is called ‘bouma’

THIS IS HARD TO READ

The theory of parallel

letterwise recognition

Bam!

We recognise the shapes of the first

10,000 words we ever learned

brainpower

Using these words on websites helps

‘reduce the cognitive load’

The f word

We read in an F shape

F-in ell

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

Who cares?

You should

Write better

Condense your ideas

Write betterer

Explain things quickly

Users only read 20%

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-little-do-users-read/

Write well good

Explain things simply

Write like a pro

Tell the user what they want to know

Write like you’re right

Not what you want to say (zzz)

Paragraphs are friends

White space around words helps you

understand what’s written

Frontload

First three words

Ta da, done!

Help the user complete their task