Blog Article Writing Format Matches Online Reading Habits: Save Words Get Read

Jakob Nielsen “King of usability”

Why is blogging and now micro-blogging such popular formats for content creation? We know it is instantaneous in it’s publishing process ready to be read at the push of a button. We know that it provides 24/7 global exposure for your brand and value message. We also know that blogging is accessible and nearly free for everyone who wishes to leverage their knowledge.

The answer is brevity or more precisely blog writing is a succinct format described as short writing. All other forms of written word fall under long writing formats.

Long Writing Requirements and Disadvantages:

• Far more time to construct your message
• Longer message length
• Far more time to deliver your message to your intended target
• Far less accessibility to your target audience
• Reliant upon an outside publisher to make your message available via newsprint, magazine, or book publishing medias

Advantages of Blog Writing Format:

• Instantaneous publishing capability
• You are your own publisher
• No reliance upon outside publisher
• Short, succinct messages save time
• Readers skim and scan; blog writing format fits there reading “style”

We are living in an instant messaging, instant recognition, instant solution society. People want answers now and they are unwilling to wade through 2,000 words to find them. Nobody understands this point better than Jakob Nielsen (Nielsen Norman Group) dubbed the “King of Useability” by Internet magazine and the “Guru of web page usability” by the New York Times.

Nielsen’s F-Shape Theory: Why Blog Article Writing is Most Effective Today

In Nielsen’s eyetracking study 232 participants looked at “thousands of Web pages” with the findings suggesting that:

“. . . users’ main reading behavior was fairly consistent across many different sites and tasks. This dominant reading pattern looks somewhat like a “F”.”

3 Components of the F-Shape Pattern:

According to Nielsen:

• Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.
• Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.
• Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.

Conclusion

Very few people read articles online word for word. Instead people’s reading habits comprise a skimming or scanning activity meant to save time. Consequently blog article writing is the perfect format for today’s reader and writer. Although the chart below shows that readers tend to stay longer on a blog article with more words, “users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely”

The following chart shows the average time users spend on pages with different word counts: