christine cawthorne's geekeasy talk: how you read on the web (and why you should care)
DESCRIPTION
Christine Cawthorne, web copywriter,TRANSCRIPT
How you read on the web
...and why you should care
Christine Cawthorne
• Web copywriter
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