You’re probably going to read this.

It’s a short paragraph at the top of the page.  It’s surrounded by white space.  It’s in small type.

To really get  attention, you should write like this:

• Bulleted list

• Occasional use of bold to prevent skimming

• Short sentence fragments

• Explanatory subheads

• No puns

• And don’t forget lists?

This is based on Jakob Nielsen’s theory.  Jakob is  a usability expert who writes an influential biweekly column on such topics as eye-tracking research, Web design errors, and banner blindness.

Wow what on earth is that all about

Well eye-tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (“where we are looking”) or the motion of an eye relative to the head.

Web design errors are obvious.

And banner blindness is a a phrase in web usability where visitors on a website ignore banner-like information

What research can tell you

What Jakob’s research shows is that visitors to your website / blog  look at information in particular ways.

• In general they look and focus on the top left center section of the information – may sound obvious as in western languages we tend to read left to right so they start at the begining.
• People tend to ignore the right hand colum – often where you see promotions, banners etc. and increasingly menus.
• They loose ‘focus’ the longer the text.

Keep paragraphs and sentences short.  They are easy to read.

Use links as they give a text more authority, making people more likely to stick around.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Functions & tips