Studies of how users read on the Web found that they do not actually read: instead, they scan the text. A study of five different writing styles found that a sample Web site scored 58% higher in measured usability when it was written concisely, 47% higher when the text was scannable, and 27% higher when it was written in an objective style instead of the promotional style used in the control condition and many current Web pages. Combining these three changes into a single site that was concise, scannable, and objective at the same time resulted in 124% higher measured usability.
Keywords: WWW, World Wide Web, writing, reading, page design.
Unfortunately, this paper is written in a print writing style and is somewhat too academic in style. We know this is bad, but the paper was written as the traditional way of reporting on a research study. We have a short summary that is more suited for online reading.
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