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Reading between the words: The psychology of reading and how understanding readers improves your content.
We have entered the age of content.
Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People
"...improve how information is presented to consumers, borrowers, program beneficiaries, and other individuals, whether as directly conveyed by the agency, or in setting standards for the presentation of information, by considering how the content, format, timing, and medium by which information is conveyed affects comprehension and action by individuals, as appropriate”
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Text and reading
Reading involves • Recognizing the words • Integrating to the words • Figuring out who was doing what to whom • Tracking to the right next line
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Bottom-up processing: Recognizing the letters
8 point 10 point
12 point 14 point 16 point 18 point
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Tracking to the next line
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Right justified Fully justified
Reading speed: Left justified > Center/Right > Fully justified
Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify where people stumbled, right? Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are broken, then it doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t really all that much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone else to tell you that the interaction is confusing? Usually not.
Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that
less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify where people stumbled, right? Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are
broken, then it doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t really all that much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone
else to tell you that the interaction is confusing?
Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that
less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify where people stumbled, right?
Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are broken, then it doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t really all that
much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone else to tell you that the interaction is confusing? Usually not.
Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify where people stumbled, right? Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are broken, then it doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t really all that much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone else to tell you that the interaction is confusing? Usually not.
Left justified Center justified
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Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify
where people stumbled, right? Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are broken, then it
doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t
really all that much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone else to tell you that the
interaction is confusing? Usually not.
Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify where people stumbled, right? Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are broken, then it doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t really all that much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone else to tell you that the interaction is confusing? Usually not.
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Some believe that this difference between ER and UT (evaluating it yourself versus observing others) means that less experienced practitioners can do equally effective UT. All you have to do is identify where people stumbled, right? Maybe. If the goal is just to figure out where things are broken, then it doesn’t take much experience to do usability testing. On that approach, however, there isn’t really all that much value to usability testing either. Do you need someone else to tell you that the interaction is confusing? Usually not.
Line length
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• Users read most efficiently with newspaper column length (55-60 characters per line)
• Poor readers do best with even shorter lines: ~ 7-9 words per line (49-54 characters/line)
• Younger readers prefer/do better with shorter lines.
Why? • Too long is hard because of the long regressive saccade • Too short is hard because there are too many regressive
saccades
Easier to read = easier to act on
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Text-formatted copy results in 12 % increase in Click-throughs on mobile devices over standard text formatting
*across 552k impressions
Readers understand based on habits
Active sentences Noun Verb Noun The dog chased the cat. Doer Action to Do-ee
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Habits that apply here 1. N-V-N 2. Dogs chase cats
Top-down processing: Understanding the message messages
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John said he really wants to stop at the bank today before he gets on the train.
If you know John is in Paris, this might mean something different.
Cohesion matters. *But not even linguist know how to describe cohesion in a measurable way.
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Coh-metrix: http://cohmetrix.com/
Attributes of cohesion
• Shared discourse model • Word overlap across sentences • Order of words • Pronouns
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Gricean rules of implicature
Maxim of Quality. Make your contribution true; so do not convey what you believe false or unjustified. (Say the truth.)
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Gricean rules of implicature
Maxim of Quality. Make your contribution true; so do not convey what you believe false or unjustified. (Say the truth.) Maxim of Quantity. Be as informative as required. (Say enough.)
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Quantity: Say enough (but not too much.)
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VUI Example If you are employed, please contact your personnel office. If you have long term health care, please call 1-800-123-1234. That number again is 1-800-123-1234. Company does not inform them of your change. To order the change of address form, press 1. Enter your id or ssn. You will receive your form to your current address within 10 days.
Gricean rules of implicature
Maxim of Quality. Make your contribution true; so do not convey what you believe false or unjustified. (Say the truth.) Maxim of Quantity. Be as informative as required. (Say enough.) Maxim of Relation. Be relevant. (Say what matters.)
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Relation (What matters): Connect the dots
Eyetracking scanpath showing user reading a long text-y page carefully.
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Relation (What matters): Educating users
Eyetracking scanpath showing user reading a long text-y page carefully.
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The Gricean rules of implicature
Maxim of Quality. Make your contribution true; so do not convey what you believe false or unjustified. (Say the truth.) Maxim of Quantity. Be as informative as required. (Say enough) Maxim of Relation. Be relevant. (Say what matters.) Maxim of Manner. Be perspicuous; so avoid obscurity and ambiguity, and strive for brevity and order. (Say it right.)
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We know if and only if we test: Content testing
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 9 8 10
Target = 80% recall
45 http://bit.ly/1PkWx9C http://www.slideshare.net/kstraub/plain-2013-a-case-and-process-for-content-testing
We know if and only if we test: Confidence testing
Could you describe the Donate my Data program to a family member or friend? a. I can describe both the idea and the details to someone else, and get
them all right. b. I can describe it mostly, but I might get some of the details wrong. c. I can describe the general idea, but not the details. d. I wouldn’t try to describe this to someone else.
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Usability people UX/Design types
“Content is not our job, its their job”
Content types
“We are writers, not researchers”
Who is responsible for testing?
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Takeaways
• People WILL (and increasingly need to) read on the web. • Understanding how people read helps you make better
decisions about content design • You will need to understand what people know before you
know what to say • What do people know? • What do people not know? • What do people want to know? • What will persuade them?
• What you think you say and what they hear … may be different. You wont know unless you test.
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Author contact information
Kath Straub [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathstraub @kathstraub
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