by
John Morkes and
Jakob Nielsen (1998)
Abstract
Web users generally prefer writing that is concise, easy to scan, and objective
(rather than promotional) in style. We incorporated these and other attributes
into a redesign of Web content. Doing so required trade-offs and some hard decisions,
but the results were positive. The rewritten website scored 159% higher than
the original in measured usability. Compared with original-site users, users
of the rewritten site reported higher subjective satisfaction and performed better
in terms of task time, task errors, and memory. Implications for website writing
and design are discussed.
Keywords: WWW, World Wide Web, writing, reading, page design,
guidelines, style guide.
Introduction
Our earlier
studies of how people read on the Web [1] indicated that they: prefer to
scan rather than read, want text to be short and to the point, and detest overly
hyped promotional writing ("marketese"). We found improvements in usability for
new versions of a site that were either scannable, concise, or objective (rather
than promotional) in style. When all three writing style improvements were combined
in a final version of the site, usability increased 124%. These results prompted
us to apply the improvements to pages from Sun's website.
Applying the Writing Guidelines
A common thread between conciseness, scannability, and objectivity is that each
reduces the user's cognitive load, which results in faster, more efficient processing
of information. (Concise text contains less information to process; scannable
text calls attention to key information; and questioning the credibility of promotional
statements seems to distract users from processing the meaning, our earlier studies
showed.) Thus, our aim was to rework existing Web pages so that they would minimize
cognitive load and enhance speed and efficiency.
We took two whitepapers (one on new-media processing and one on the market
for Java) from Sun's website and used them to create two versions of a study
website.
The original version of the test site consisted of three
pages and used the existing whitepapers with only slight modifications: A special
homepage and banner were created for the whitepapers, and external hypertext
links were deleted so that evaluators would focus on only that site.
The rewritten version of the site consisted of eight pages
that were much shorter on average (not counting the homepage, each page averaged
346 words, compared with 2,232 for the original). Total word count for the
site was 2,425 words, which was 54% the length of the original version.
Concise: This was the most difficult guideline to follow,
because we were concerned about cutting out "too much." We began by separating
the whitepapers using what seemed like natural section breaks. Then we cut,
trying to strike a balance between keeping useful information and making the
whitepapers easy and fast to read. Doing so required not only tightening of
language, but also cutting of overly detailed information. Here is sample text
from each site:
- Original:
- Facilities management also portend high growth. To be sure, microprocessors
can be found today in electronic thermostats, intercom systems, automatic
sprinkler systems, stand-alone light timers and alarm systems that themselves
are linked to a central monitoring station. But picture a home network
that ties all these things-and more-together into a coordinated facilities
and environmental control system. ....
- Rewritten:
- Facilities management also will rely on new devices. Electronic thermostats,
intercom systems, automatic sprinkler systems and alarm systems all will
be tied into a coordinated control system linked to a central monitoring
system. ...
Scannable: Several changes were made to summarize and call
attention to important pieces of text. We added tables of contents and section
summaries, as users in previous studies found them particularly useful. We
also included bullets, numbered lists, boldface and colored text to highlight
keywords, additional headings, and shorter paragraphs. These changes were relatively
easy to make and gave the pages a cleaner, more open design.
Objective: Removing marketese from the text was not difficult
to do. We removed adjectives (e.g., "great" and "overwhelming"), buzzwords
(e.g., "paradigm"), and claims that were not supported with evidence. Of course,
it may not be possible (or desirable) to remove all promotional writing from
a corporate website. As with conciseness, we sometimes struggled to find what
we considered a reasonable balance.
Evaluation of the Sites
To evaluate the original and rewritten websites, 21 technical users participated
in a 2-condition (original or rewritten site) between-subjects experiment. Users'
job titles included system administrator, systems analyst, software developer,
and senior programmer.
The participant's first two tasks were to search for specific facts within
the site. For example, one task was to find out: "According to the website,
in the future, how will users of the new-media desktop perceive the LAN/WAN
interface?" Next was a judgment task, suggested by [2], in which the participant
had to find relevant information, then make a judgment about it. The question
was: "The 'Market for Java' whitepaper mentions several characteristics
of Java. In your opinion, what is the most important characteristic that is
mentioned? Why do you think so?" This task was followed by a questionnaire.
Next, the participant spent 8 minutes looking at the pages in the website,
in preparation for a short exam. As an example, one of the questions read: "According
to the site, which network-computing application area is the least developed?
a) government b) commerce c) consumer d) education."
Results
As predicted, the rewritten version of the site outperformed the original version
on all four major measures, t test data showed (see table).
Significance levels for t tests:
* p <.05
** p < .01
| Condition |
Task Time |
Task Errors |
Memory |
Subjective Satisfaction |
Original
(control condition) |
637 |
0.91 |
0.33 |
4.9 |
| (315) |
(0.70) |
(0.35) |
(2.5) |
| Rewritten |
315** |
0.10** |
0.65** |
6.7* |
| (110) |
(0.32) |
(0.19) |
(1.4) |
The table shows that the rewritten version outperformed the original
on all measures. The table shows mean scores for the following measures
(standard deviations appear in parentheses):
- Task Time
- the number of seconds users took to complete the three tasks
- Task Errors
- a percentage score based on the number of incorrect answers given in the
two search tasks
- Memory
- comprises recognition (score on multiple-choice questions) and recall (percentage
of Java characteristics recalled) measures from the exam
- Subjective Satisfaction
- the mean score (on a 10-point scale) of ratings given by the users for
four indices from the questionnaire: quality of the site, ease of use, likability
of the site, and user affect.
To determine how much better or worse in percentage terms the rewritten site
version was relative to the original, we normalized all mean scores for the
major measures. For each measure, the original condition's mean score was set
to equal 100, and the rewritten condition's mean score was transformed (by
division) relative to the control. The data showed that the rewritten version
of the site was "better" for all four measures: task time (80% better), task
errors (809%), memory (100%), and subjective satisfaction (37%).
An overall usability score was calculated for each version
of the site, by taking the geometric mean of the normalized scores for the
four measures. For overall usability, the rewritten version was 159%
better than the original.
Users' comments also confirmed their preference for the rewritten version.
Users especially appreciated the changes that made the text easier to scan.
A typical comment was, "The main ideas keep popping out at you. Boom. It's
very easy to follow."
Conclusions
This study showed that reworking some of Sun's Web pages (to make the writing
scannable, concise, and objective) made a major, positive difference in technical
users' performance and subjective satisfaction, as well as overall usability.
Of course, "How concise is too concise?" is not easy to answer. We made the
rewritten version 54% the length of the original. We tried to cut carefully,
but it is likely that some of the information we cut might have been useful
to some users. However, users preferred the shorter version and even thought
it was more complete than the original. (For the question "How complete
is the site's treatment of the topic?", the rewritten version scored 7 out
of 10, compared with 6 for the original.) Thus, concise writing is not inconsistent
with comprehensive writing.
The results for task errors are dramatic. Based on observation of participants,
we think the errors are in large part due to original-version users' impatience
and unwillingness to wade through long blocks of text, opting instead to guess
at the answer. Finally, our studies suggest that in many cases, one can probably
double usability of a website simply by rewriting the author's original text:
- Our first study increased usability of a site with tourist information
by 124%
- The current case study increased usability of technical white papers by
159%
The first study simply made the text concise, scannable, and objective; the second
study followed these guidelines as well as several others, including the use
of hypertext to split long text into smaller and more focused pages.
References
- Morkes, J., and Nielsen, J. (1997). "Concise,
SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web." http://www.experoinc.com/company/webwriting.htm
- Spool, J. M., Scanlon, T., Schroeder, W., Snyder, C., & DeAngelo, T.
(1997). Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide. North Andover, MA: User Interface
Engineering.
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