A total of 480 Internet users who participated in a recent Webcopyplus poll rated the overall quality of web content, and the marks are less that stellar. In fact, more than 88% of the online poll respondents believe they are served “poor” content on the Web.
Additionally, subsequent interviews with web users revealed numerous common concerns.
Read the full story: Poll: Web Delivers Poor Content.
Clients are regularly surprised to find out the web copywriters at Webcopyplus aim to deliver web content at a grade 8 language level.
The reasons are many: to promote readability, scanability and usability. Simple connects. You decrease the chances of alienating your audience.
While there are exceptions, most target audiences will have varied expertise, in both the Internet and subject matter. A Web or subject expert can endure simplicity, but a novice might not be able to identify with or comprehend complex information.
If your business needs to communicate complicated information, an effective solution is to layer various degrees of details through links. That way, when necessary, your visitors can drill down and get the finer points.
In any case, web copywriters should always go out of their way to keep web content clear, concise and easy to read. Simple web content translates to more connections and higher conversion rates.
European web designers are churning out poor text legibility, unclear menus and confusing task flows, reveals a recent study by Forrester Research.
Nine top European web design agencies offered two of their best reference sites to the research group for rigorous review. Forrester reported it was surprised at the blunders, which it stated “are all well-researched usability problems, often with known solutions.”
The research group went on to state: “Customer experience experts can fix these problems by simply applying scenario design principles and better standards for text fonts and sizes, and by using web analytics to identify task-flow problem spots.”
When considering the best font for your website, look at the two most common options:
While studies show people read serif text faster in print, people actually read sans serif quicker onscreen.
A new survey of U.S. home computer users shows that the replacement of PC software by websites has already spread far beyond early adopters in the U.S., with over a third of U.S. home computer owners using at least one web application to replace software that was previously installed on their PCs.
“Most industry observers talk about ‘Web 2.0’ applications as something that’s coming in the future, but our research showed that some web apps are already spreading rapidly through the PC user base,” said Rubicon Consulting’s Michael Mace. “Most computer users are very practical. They don’t care if a software program is installed on their computer or built into a website. If it solves their problems, they’ll use it. The barriers to adoption of web applications are very low.”
The Rubicon study comprised feedback from more than 2,000 U.S. home PC owners during the summer of 2007.
Internet users are consuming more web content but communicating less, reveals a four-year study by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).
The report, released Aug. 13, states Internet users are spending 47% of their time online reading and watching content, compared with 34% in 2003, representing a 37% increase over four years.
The increase in the time spent on content has been steady; growing 10% from 2003 to 2004, remaining even between 2004 and 2005, growing 13% from 2005 to 2006, and growing 13% from 2006 to 2007.
More than 93% of Internet users indicated they favour speed and readability over appearance when visiting websites, according to a recent online poll conducted by Webcopyplus.
When Internet users were asked what’s likely to drive them away from a website:
