Jakob Nielsen. Source: UseIt
Accoring to Jakob Neilsen (PHD), who has been dubbed “the king of usability” and is a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group‘s article How Users Read on the Web:
The format of a webpage will make or break the readers attention. For example, having long paragraphs with no pictures all in one font will definitely have the reader click the back button on the browser. It is important to have an appealing layout to ensure the reader stays on the webpage. Some things to include would be highlighting the important words and points. This will help the reader realize if the webpage is right for their purpose. Also, it is important to have clear sub-headings, one main point per paragraph, and clear and concise writing. This way the reader is able to navigate through the page easily.
More specifically, the article titled, “Blah-blah text”, describes how to capture the readers attention in the introduction. The magic formula that people use to write books, essays, and papers is not the same for a website. In fact it is the exact opposite. On any good website, the first glimpse of what you see will not be a long paragraph where you must search for the main points, but will be short and simple. It will be one to two sentences at the most and will sometimes even just be a list of bullet points.
It is important to make sure that your website answers two questions: What and Why. If the introductory few images or words is able to capture these questions, the reader is more likely to stay on the website a little bit longer than if the reader had to scroll through the entire page to figure out what it was about. A good example of this is on the website: Visit California. On the first page they have pictures and text in bullet form describing a few vacation points about California. This will help a person interested in learning more about California see what kinds of places the state has to offer. On the other hand a bad example of this would be: Oregon State – Vitamin B12. This particular website is describing the vitamin b12 but looking at the way the site is formatted it is hard to tell what exactly they are trying to say. The website opens up with a large paragraph which would confuse and deter the reader from the site.
It is not always the content and the way that it is presented that is the issue but it also can be the complexity of the matter being discussed. For example it may be harder to introduce a vacation than a scientific process. Regardless of what is being shown, if the first few glimpses of the website are able to tell and show the reader what they will be learning about the reader will be more likely to stay on the webpage longer.
Both of the articles that I read related on how the layout should be presented to ensure that the readers attention is caught. The purpose is to ensure the reader stays on the web page as long as possible. To do so, the webpage must have clear and concise writing, an appealing layout, one point per paragraph, and an introduction that will tell the reader what they should be expecting from the website. If there is one thing that is important it is to have a concise website that focuses on one topic and then dividing up into different web pages for more details, but having everything on one page will just confuse the reader.
I thought your blog post was well done and brings up many good points, however, I disagree with your statement, ” For example it may be harder to introduce a vacation than a scientific process.” As a science major, it can be extremely difficult to explain a scientific process in layman’s terms, let alone trying to put it in a webpage format that is appealing to readers. I think that if a reader is searching the internet to understand an entire scientific process, they might be a bit more willing to read the entire page rather than if someone is looking for a good vacation spot.