Did you know that your website visitors will read between 20% to 28% of your text?
People don’t read websites. They scan them. They look for what they need, and they skip the rest. So the trick is to make the content scan friendly so that your customers read the bits you want them to.
In this article, I’ve listed proven techniques to make your text more user-friendly.
Use Sections
People won’t read every word on a webpage. Instead, they often scan, because it takes less time and effort. Think about it, when was the last time you read a webpage word for word? By separating the text into sections, and using headlines and spacing to separate parts, with one idea per paragraph, you can help your visitors scan text quickly.
Avoid using All Caps
Don’t use all capital letters text for large amounts of text. Lowercase is more familiar to people and easier to read. When the text is all capital letters, reading speed is slowed by about 13% to 20%. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use capitals but use them sparingly and only for short pieces of text.
Use Bullet Points
Bullet points help people scan and understand more easily. It makes your content faster and simpler to process.
Chunking content
Have you noticed how credit card numbers are seperated into 4 chunks of 4 digits? Because it’s easier to read and retain the information. Which phone number is easier to read? 0725111111111111 or 0725 1111 1111 1111.
Chunking content makes it easier for people to comprehend and remember.
Use Plain English
Try to avoid any words or phrases that your target audience won’t understand. Industry jargon will not be familiar to your readers, so avoid it. Use words your readers can easily recognise and understand, and this will make it quicker and easier to read.
Apply these practices, and you’ll improve the readability of your website.