Make Your Web Site More Scannable
By Mitch “Highlight the Positives” Keeler
When developing content online, you have to keep this question in mind. Is your web page scannable? Can I quickly scroll over it, speed read and easily pick out the basics I need to know?
In my Google Reader account, I might subscribe to 150 to 200 RSS feeds from different web sites. Now some people might say I’m crazy. How could a person find time to read all that content? The real secret is, I don’t. Most of the time, I am quickly scanning over the text for things that jump out at me.
Nobody spends much time on web sites these days. So, instead of looking at that as a bad thing, think of it instead as a good thing. What you need to do now is to help them get the content they need quicker.
What helps to break up the monotonous long page with just text? Try tossing in some headings and sub headings. Use pictures, blockquotes, shorter paragraphs and formatting. Just make sure you do it all in moderation. Go check out the New York Times web site. Now I can scroll down that just glancing over the headlines in a few seconds. If something pops out at me, I might read a little more.
It might take a while to find the right balance. Check out some other web sites Online and see how they are breaking their web sites up to be more scanable.
January 1st, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Thats still need to spend a lot of times. I would rather only subscribe to the rss that really have good content.
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:24 am
Very true, good content is the key to all of this. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to make your good content look a little more appealing to the average web visitor.