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A new study seems to have the answer. From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox comes a very interesting mathematical formula quantifying how little text people actually read during average Web page visits. The summary states:
On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
Ponder that for a minute.
There's a lot of things I take away from this:
1. The web is massive, and people are busy, so it's natural that they'd read selectively.
2. If people are spending less time reading, then video and images are imperative.
3. I'm lucky if you read beyond my block quote or numbered list.
I understand the importance of scanning, but a part of me fears for the future of literacy, even though the study shows that it's highly literate people who are doing the scanning. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Thanks for reading.
Tip of the hat to Aaron Wall's recent post on strategic content for the study citation and inspiration.
About the Author: Paul RichlovskyA member of the company since 2006, Paul is a former English teacher who has served in various writing, editing, and account management capacities. He currently helps guide Fathom's internal marketing strategy and also blogs for YouShouldGoToSchool.com, a resource for nontraditional students in the for-profit education sector.
Comments
1 Comment so farOne Response to “You’re Reading the Title, But How Much More?”
Paul,
The death of literacy began with the inception of email. Then AOL chatrooms and ICQ. From there it turned to a number of various instant messaging services. Next, evil emoticons. Now the mobile community has pounded the "coolness" of texting via phone which have multi-touch keypads and character string restrictions. Technology itself might be the plauge that catapults literacy to pictograms -- u no wat i mean? ;)