Reading between the words: The psychology of reading and how understanding readers improves your content

Reading between the words: The psychology of reading and how understanding readers improves your content.

(This is me.)

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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National Center for Education Statistics

Literacy is still a problem

We have limited cognitive workspace.

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We delude ourselves about content on the web.

The goal of writing

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9 Linguistspeak: Common discourse Models

The mechanics of reading

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How design influences reading …

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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

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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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Bottom-up processing: Recognizing the letters

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Bottom-up processing: Recognizing the words

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E El Ele Elep

Elephant

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

So what?

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Bottom-up strategies to make reading easier.

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http://www.asym.co/

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

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The mechanics of understanding…

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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

Passives Noun Verb Noun The dog was chased by the cat Do-ee Action by Do-er. 28

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.

Top-down processing: Understanding the message messages

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Cohesion at the discourse level.

31 My thesis was about exactly this. (!)

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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Are there rules to live by?

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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): Gated-guided paths

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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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Jargon is not always bad….

How do we know if we got it right?

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We know if and only if we test: Content testing

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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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