{"id":258,"date":"2019-08-17T15:47:29","date_gmt":"2019-08-17T15:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.ambogdan.com\/writing-for-web-top-7-favorite-nielsen-articles\/"},"modified":"2020-10-09T00:25:48","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T00:25:48","slug":"writing-for-web-top-7-favorite-nielsen-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessbooster.ro\/writing-for-web-top-7-favorite-nielsen-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing for the Web – Top 7 Favorite Nielsen Articles (Update)"},"content":{"rendered":"
The whole context of writing for the web has changed and most probably will continue to do so. This is thanks to all empowering devices and technologies that come up on the market at an accelerated pace.<\/p>\n
I’ve grown up as a professional with Jakob Nielsen’s articles, books and must-attend Usability Week.\u00a0 So it’s no wonder, I’ve been telling everybody interested in exploring digital that useit.com<\/a> is one great starting point. This time, I thought I should concentrate on recommending some of the best pieces of advice given by Nielsen on writing for the web. Putting them in practice might increase the chances of your texts of being read by online users.<\/p>\n Everybody\u00a0writes something. Today more than ever. It may well be a Twitter or Facebook post, a\u00a0blog post,\u00a0an online article etc. Whether we call ourselves writers, content creators\u00a0or generators,\u00a0authors or simply amateurs, we all want the message to reach our\u00a0audience.<\/p>\n The reality is that the audience is very volatile, always on the move. They are always one click away from another website. On top of this, those potential readers are reaching these messages from all sorts of devices. Not to mention, master Google and its algorithms. This raises new challenges not only for those looking for a good story but especially for those of us writing for the web.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s a totally different new game. It forces writers to understand and learn a new set of skills, rethink the way they write. One cannot think of writing for the web unless first understand how users read online<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Nielsen’s research on how people read websites they found that only 16 % of the users read word-by-word.\u00a079% of the test users always scan any new page. Nielsen goes even as far as claiming that:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “They don’t. People rarely read web pages word by word, instead, they scan the page picking out individual words and sentences.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you are sceptical about such findings, just look at the eye-tracking proofs Nielsen uses.<\/p>\n In\u00a0User-centric vs. Maker-centric Language: 3 Essential Guidelines,<\/a> Nielsen offers\u00a0three tips you should have in mind to create a user-centric copy:<\/p>\n If you want your readers to stay on your page, avoid using industry words, business jargon, too many buzzwords or features although for you it’s easier, familiar and comfortable. Put yourself in their shoes, imagine you are them. What would you like to understand?<\/p>\n “(…) start the article by telling the reader the conclusion (‘After long debate, the Assembly voted to increase state taxes by 10 percent’), follow by the most important supporting information, and end by giving the background.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Inverted pyramids in cyberspace<\/a> is one of the first articles my good friend George Pogorelschi gave me to read back in 1999 when I joined OgilvyInteractive. First published in 1996 and updated in time, Jakob Nielsen article’s main recommendation still applies today for anyone writing for the web.<\/p>\n Writers or readers of online or offline texts, we all love good headlines, smart titles… when they do their job,\u00a0they get our attention, they make us tick or\u00a0click; when poorly crafted, we just ignore them and move on.<\/p>\n The reality\u00a0is online headlines are\u00a0very different<\/a> from printed headlines\u00a0because they are\u00a0used\u00a0differently. The context varies, the moment or the device these links are accessed, does make a difference.<\/p>\n “The projects you work on at this very moment will be interacted with on devices Headlines, titles, subjects also known as microcontent need to be, according to Nielsen calls it,<\/p>\n “pearls of clarity: you get 40-60 characters to explain your macro content. Unless the title or subject makes it absolutely clear what the page or email is about, users will never open it”.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n BBC loves good headlines<\/a>\u00a0and their team masters the art of creating engaging and powerful news titles and this articles shows you how they do it.<\/p>\n Hoa Loranger, Norman Nielsen Group digital expert, makes a good point. To be very specific, as content creators we often miss opportunities to engage with our users. We fail to use “links that follow up on the user\u2019s current interest encourage site exploration and reduce bounce rates. With the proper invitation, people will stay longer on your site.” <\/em>Here’s Loranger’s pieces of advice on how to write appropriate link texts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Good links help the users discover more relevant content… and good links titles do not just happen. As Jacob Nielsen says, to help users quickly find what they need, anchor texts aka links should stand out from the body content<\/a> and accurately describe the page that they refer to.<\/p>\n That would be all for now, but I’ll be back with more!<\/p>\n Latest updates … August 2019<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writing for the web is one topic I love to talk about. This time I’ve chosen 7 personal favorite articles from Norman Nielsen Group. Although some were published few years ago, the learnings and advices he has been given still apply today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[104,105,107,108,110,111],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-strategy","tag-copywriting","tag-headlines","tag-jakob-nielsen","tag-links","tag-online-reading","tag-online-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nWriting for the web …<\/h2>\n
Users don’t read, they scan<\/h2>\n
Write for the readers<\/h2>\n
\n
Start with the conclusion<\/h2>\n
Get attention with a headline<\/h2>\n
\nthat didn’t exist when you created them.”\u00a0Asher Blumberg, Mobile UX Designer<\/p><\/blockquote>\nLead with a link<\/h2>\n
New Nielsen articles worth reading …<\/h2>\n
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