If you’ve ever watched people read online, you’ll know they rarely read closely. Most people scan read most of the time. When we ask them why, they tell us they just want the information they need and can’t be bothered with the rest.
One of the key issues is that so much of what gets published online is unnecessarily wordy. There are two problem areas — wordy writing and content that isn’t of any real value, such as:
- Welcome messages — as though someone will be offended if we don’t welcome them every time they come to our website
- Instructions that don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know — ‘click on the links below to find the information you want’
- Introductions that state the obvious or repeat information that appears further down the page
- Background that people already know or don’t care much about.
An article in the current edition of The Atlantic suggests that people have moved to using online newspapers because the print versions are unnecessarily long. It includes some great examples. Although the analysis relates to journalism, there are lessons here for web writers too.
See: Cut this story, by Michael Kinsley
