Have you ever wondered how your website design affects the readability and effectiveness of your content? Well you should have, because when it comes to marketing online it’s the words that do the heavy lifting.
Recently Smashing Magazine’s Dimitry Fadeyev compiled a list of 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines. Here are 3 guidelines to help your content work harder:
Don’t Assume Readers Will Scroll
Because “77% of visitors won’t scroll” below the fold, present your most pertinent information in the upper part of the page. This includes the website name, a call to action and specific details about how your website will be valuable to the reader.
White Space Improves Comprehension
Even the most dazzling copy will fail to make an impact if it’s crammed into an intimidating layout. Think big blocks of text.
Fadeyev references a 2004 study to suggest that “good use of white space between paragraphs and in the left and right margins increases comprehension by almost 20%.” So give your readers the best user experience by being generous with white space.
Good Product Descriptions Increase Sales
It’s not a great idea to leave your product images to do the whole job of closing the sale. Help buyers out with brief, easy to comprehend product descriptions and specs. To quote: “Research shows that poor product information accounts for around 8% of usability problems and even 10% of user failure (i.e. the user gives up and leaves the website).”
But don’t go overboard with descriptive text. And keeping the white space rules in mind, also make liberal use of to-the-point headings and subheadings.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
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