Content Design - key takeaways from Sarah Winters
Key takeaways from Content Design by Sarah Winters
Content Design is a way of thinking, not a technique.
The science of reading:
There are involuntary mechanics involved in how users take in information. The more content is easy to read, the more a user will understand.
Eyes don’t read one word to the next; they jump around the general area in the sentence of words in three zones called fixations. The brain fills in the rest of the words after the first few characters. Brains can miss 30% of words and fill it in.
Based on how familiar the words are, the eyes will jump - known as a saccade. A user doesn’t take in info at a saccade, only a fixation.
Jacob Nielsen figured out that users only read 20%-28% of a page. After that cognitive load increases by 11% per 100 words. That’s a lot!
There's a strong argument for using words your readers can easily recognize, understand, and skip by using their natural saccade rhythm.
Sentence case is preferred over title case so users can remember the content more likely.
Bring your organization with you:
Most of the time, leading with a fact can get you positive attention quickly. If it’s an insight that has led to the change, include it to give some context–but use it in an action-oriented way.
PDFs are not accessible. People only want to print them because they can’t print your website page effectively. Is there a way to change that?
Keep sentences short. 15-20 words per sentence. 8-11 words are easy. 14-17 standard. Anything beyond 21 words is difficult.
Don’t use jargon
Only use words in the user's vocabulary
Content design should be based on data.
Frontload your headings with the main content in the first part of the heading.
Subheadings are very important: they may be the only thing users read other than the title.
The scent of information vs 3 clicks: users will follow the scent to the information they are looking for. As long as there is a path of crumbs leading them to what they are looking for they will keep clicking.
Content Design is a way of thinking, not a technique.
