Notes About Length: Making Me Think About It:WebWritingAndDesign

Based on human eye.

Macula: The area of the retina used for tasks requiring high visual acuity. Small, less than 15 percent of the retina.
Reading slows as ideal width is exceeded.
If the eye has to go great distances to read text, will it?
Note:

Enlarged texts: What about people who enlarge their texts on phone, computer, etc. to accommodate older eyes or bad vision? Do they text smaller paragraphs, read less than normal?

Page Length and its Four Factors:

The relation between page and screen size.
The content of your documents.
Whether the reader is expected to browse the content online or to print or download the documents for later reading.

Note:

I don't think a writer or author can write their content specifically for a reader who would rather read their content online or rather print it off and read it that way. It's a personal choice. What makes a reader look at writing and decide either or?

The bandwidth available to your audience.

Note:

Disorientation from scrolling?

Long web pages require the user to remember too much information and users tend to easily lose their sense of context when nav. buttons or major links are not visible.

Note:

What about note taking?
How much is remembered on short spans of text?

Long Web Page Advantages:

Easier for creators to organize and for users to download.
Web managers don't maintain as many links and pages with longer documents, and users don't need to download multiple files to collect info on a topic.
Keeping the content in one place makes printing or saving easier.

Note:

Difficulties with printing longer documents? Also, yes printing larger documents is nice, but you're still scanning the content, and then flipping through the pages trying to find what you highlighted, etc.

How-To: Good Online Interfaces for Long Documents

Divide document into chunks of no more than two printed pages' worth of info.
Provide a link to a separate file that contains the full-length text combined as one page so the reader can print or save in one step. Provide the url of the online version too.
Position "jump to top buttons" at regular intervals.

Note:

Accidentally clicked can cause loss of where you are in the document. How frequent should they be placed, really necessary?

Overall:

Longer Documents are:

Easier to mantain.
Not chopped up.
Easier for users to download and print.

Shorter Documents are:

Home pages and menu or navigation pages on site.
Documents that can be browsed and read online.
Pages with large graphics.

-Note:
This site has one of the simplest site menus I've ever seen. Easy of use? A monkey could do it.

Extra Notes:

The first six inches of a webpage are important.
Don't judge a webpage as a unit but by dividing the page into visual and functional zones.
Note: The New York Times Homepage -- The top screen of information is much denser with links because it is the only area all users will see.

eMedia: Less is really More

Computer screens follow different rules than written documents in print do.
Cut traditional texts by %50 when writing for screen.

Really?

Cutting overall length makes it easier to scan.

Note:

If it's being scanned anyways, why cut it?

Seven to ten-word sentences are ideal.

Write Long--then Trim

"If you know something can't be more than 200 words, write 300, and then cut it to 175.

Note:

Or just write 175? Why write more and then cut it? I don't understand how this is beneficial.

Keep Sentences Simple

Good: Complex compound sentences are hard to read.
Bad: Complex sentences like this one, with its introductory subordinate clause and parenthetical prepositional phrases, are going to be troublesome.

Use Short Paragraphs

Long paragraphs, easily navigable on paper, are hopeless on a screen.
Use breaks or paragraph blocks.
Cut all transitional phrases.
Breaking simple paragraphs into bullet lists often increases readability.

They permit faster reading.
Don't use words just to use words.

Think the "Bad," "Better," "Brutal" section.

Dead phrases are bad.

Dead phrases, redundancies and stating the obvious are things to avoid.

"Before I get started..."
"There."

An Example:

Bad: It is a pleasure to welcome you to our site. (10)
Better: Welcome to our site! (4)
Better Still: Welcome! (1)

Lesson: Don't overdo it.

-Note:
Good: Forever 21
Worse: Cabela's
Better?: Facebook

What about social media in general?

Price, from Hot Text

Don't make me read!

Cutting half the words works. The point is fewer words means less reading. (Agrees with the above.)
People use the text that you create in menus, headings, and search results. Buttons and links, also.

Only when a guest has successfully used your text to identify a topic as worthwhile will he or she actually slow down and read.

How much brainpower will be left of your reader once they are done reading?
Plus attention is drawn away.
Less text = less strain on a visitor's ability to concentrate.

"The more you say, the less people remember."

Save the Meaning

Cross out:

Words that have been included just to emphasize your sincerity, like really and truly.
Words that don't add anything to what you have already said.
Unnecessary details.
Phrases that unnecessarily repeat words you have already used, when a pronoun will do.
Phrases that tell the readers something they already learned earlier.
Pompous bullshit.
Corporate speak.

An Example:

Before:
How do I check out when I am all done with my shopping at the stores with the Jumbo portal?

Whether you are buying one item, a dozen, or maybe a hundred, you can just simply click on the Shopping Cart icon, which appears at the top of every JumboShop page. Once you are in the shopping cart, you can do several things, if you want. Optionally, you can confirm that everything you wanted to buy has shown up in the order, enter billing and shipping information, and then click the Check Me Out button, we send your order to the individual store. At that point, the transaction is between you and the store, and if there are any problems, you need to talk to the store. If you call us, we will only be able to help you with out part of the transaction, that is, before we actually send the order to the store. (171)

After:
How do I check out?

1. Click the Shopping Cart, at the top of the page.
2. Look over your order. (You can delete items if you want.)
3. Enter billing and shipping info.
4. Click Check Me Out.

At that time, we send your order to the individual store. (50)

- Note:

Is there an in-between option? What about the info about problems and who to call for that? Is that a separate tab then, or is the information just not important enough? I personally like information or instructions drawn out. Sometimes shortening means too much shortening in my opinion.

Audience Fit

To Have Fun
To Learn
To Act
To Be Aware
To Get Close to People

Cost Benefits and Content Strategy

How much info is enough? Too much? Optional?
Information Foraging
Diet Selection

Animals and people decide what to consume in a way that optimizes their benefits relative to the costs.
Cost/benefit ratio

Cost/Benefit Metrics for Reading

Cost is calculated as the amount of time it takes to read an article.

Intranet: a direct cost in dollars because we're paying employees for every minute they spend reading stuff during work hours.
Website: time is more of an indirect cost, because users don't get paid to surf the web. However, users don't like wasting their time. Or do they?

Benefit can be modeled by hypothetical benefit units that represent whatever value users get from online information.

For home users, benefits might also have a dollar value. Think of buying airline tickets. The benefit of checking one more site or one more alternate departure time would be the average savings on the airfare that resulted from using a richer data set to decide which ticket to buy.

Long vs. Short

Short:

600 words, cost of 3 minute to read.
7 benefit units gained from reading each article.

Long:

1,000 words, cost of 5 minutes to read.
10 benefit units gained from reading each article.

Finding a new article to read:

1 minute

The conclusion is clear: people prefer to read short articles.

A good editor should be able to cut 40% of the word count while removing only 30% of an article's value. The cuts should be the least valuable information, anyways.

-Note:
This article doesn't think so. People aren't complaining just online either, but also about in-print articles, like in newspapers. The author of this article believes that the fact that people still read newspapers must mean that they have grown accustomed to how they are written. That doesn't mean we shouldn't adjust to how certain mediums receive our content, but also should feel confident in the fact that readers are readers for a reason.

In Real Life

Reading benefits vary, depending on user circumstances.
Most of the time, short articles contain more value per word.
People sometimes gain higher value from complete or very detailed information about a problem.

So, what do we do?

Should your website have concise or in-depth content?

If you want many readers, focus on short and scannable content. Think advertising-driven sites or sites that sell impulse buys.
If you want people who really need a solution, focus on comprehensive coverage. Think selling highly targeted solutions to complicated problems.
However, there is no reason to limit yourself to only one content type.

On the Web, you can offer both short and long treatments. Start with overviews and short, simplified pages. Then link to long, in-depth coverage on other pages. With this approach, you can serve both types of users.

Hey, that means the more likely people will use the site increases and they will also stay longer. So optimize your content strategy for your users' needs.

Short Pages Outperforming Long

What's better?

Case 1: Moto Messages

Goal: to get more people to take a tour of their service and get to the pricing page.
With the shorter version, 97% more people went to their Tour & Features page and 21% more people landed on their pricing page.

Case 2: DesignBoost

Homepage goal: to get more people to sign up for their free design course.
Secondary goal: to clickthrough to the Courses page, so people would find a course of interest.
13% more email signups and 25% more people checking out their courses.

Case 3: Pipedrive

A reccomendation of making their homepage shorter lead to 300% increase in signups.
"If people like the produce they can bothered with settings and details later." -- CEO Timo

Case 4: ConversionXL

A test of a short homepage against an even shorter one.
The results? 2.5X more email subscriptions, 25% more clickthroughts to the blog and 45% more people checked out the services.

What's going on?

Due to short attention spans, people want to get straight to the point.
The goal of the homepage is to get people off the homepage, and shorter homepages seem to do it well.
Consider the audience, though.
Shorter pages don't ask for money, and that's a major difference.

The Copy Matrix

Nature of visitor motivation.
Initial Level of Anxiety about product/company.
Level of cost/commitment associate with conversion.

Short = "want oriented" like high-impact copy for concert tickets, designer shoes, or mp3 players.
Long = better performer when there is a rational, analytical, need-oriented motivation like consumer insurance products.

Conclusion

Make 2 versions for your homepage and then test each.
If the short one ends up winning, it's not a waste. Just take the content of the longer page and make it a separate page.
You've first got to capture people's interest, and then they might be ready for more information.
By moving the content onto a separate page and adding it to the menu, you're giving people an option to read it when they're ready for it.

Note:

I personally don't have a preference over long or short. If I want to read something, I will. If I want to read something and it's long, then yes, I will scan it in some cases but I don't wish that the author had cut 50% of his or her writing.

WebWritingAndDesign : NotesAboutLengthWPJ