How Little Do Users Read? (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) Summary: On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. We've known since our first studies of how users read on the Web that they typically don't read very much. Scanning text is an extremely common behavior for higher-literacy users; our recent eyetracking studies further validate this finding. The only thing we've been missing is a mathematical formula to quantify exactly how much (or how little) people read online. Now, thanks to new data, we have this as well.
The Research Study For full details, see the following academic paper: Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder, and Matthias Mayer: "Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use," in the ACM Transactions on the Web, vol. 2, no. 1 (February 2008), article #5. In the study, the authors instrumented 25 users' browsers and recorded extended information about everything they did as they went about their normal Web activities. Full Report. Long vs. Short Articles as Content Strategy (Jakob Nielsen' Write Articles, Not Blog Postings (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox. Blog Usability: Top 10 Weblog Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen. Design for Web 2.0 (kottke.org) Jason Fried, Jeff Veen, and I did a workshop yesterday on Design for Web 2.0. In preparing for the informal chat we had among ourselves and with the audience, we prepared a list of questions to consider.
There's about 15 of them, presented here unedited without context or answers: - Right now, Web design feels like talking to the del.icio.us API and blending Flickr RSS with Upcoming iCal subscriptions. What happens when design(ers) has little to do with what's on the page? - Blogs democratized publishing, now "tags" could be considered to democratize information architecture. . - How do we justify the high upfront costs of doing user research? - I love quick wins. . - It feels to me that IT departments still operate under the assumption that technology is a precious resource that should be guarded carefully and trickled out. . - Can usability drive innovation? - How do you go about designing for groups? - Do brochureware sites still have a place on today's Web? - Should one design fit all? Creating Passionate Users. My Favorite Graphs... and the future This blog has always been about optimism, creating better user experiences, helping users spend more time in flow, and learning.
There are 405 posts here. More importantly, there are nearly 10,000 comments from y'all that add so much more to the topics, and from which myself and others have learned a great deal. I don't want the last thing people remember about this blog to be The Bad Things. So, I've moved my original "threats" post--something many people find very difficult to look at-- to a different web page -- rather than keeping it as a post here. If you want to read the original content of the post (it lost some formatting), it's here.
But I want the thing people see when they come here now to reflect what this blog has always been about, so I'm including a few of my favorite pictures from the last two years here. I made no money from this blog -- it was always a labor of love. That leaves me with... what to do next? Please help. Probably, yes.