Youâre probably wondering why I would want to talk about reading on electronic sources. Youâre probably saying to yourself âŚis this really a thing? The answer is yes!
In fact there are a lot of studies that have been performed on how people read on electronic devices or how people differ in the way they read on electronic sources versus paper sources.
Whether you have a smart phone or an E-reader or a tablet or a computer, if you read on any of these you are reading on an electronic source. It doesnât matter whether itâs a book, a blog post, an email or official research, if it is on a screen we can make certain assumptions.
Before we start with this I want you to put a picture in your mind. Think about the last time you were around young people - teenagers or early 20s. Did you watch them interacting on their phone? Although Iâm going to make some generalizations about this age group, their behavior will apply to most people trying to find information on a phone. The person stands with the phone in one hand and with the other hand uses one finger to scroll. The scrolling may be quick, or it may be slow, but itâs unusual to see a person holding a phone and just reading; not getting ready to move the screen. Letâs face it, those little screens are pretty small. I read fairly quickly and anytime Iâm trying to read something on my phone my finger is moving the screen as I read.
A saying that I came across several years ago about readers having the attention span of a gnat is one that Iâm fond of. It seems to encapsulate the scanning behavior that is seen on electronic sources.
Studies on how somebody reads on electronic sources have been going on for decades. Back when I was teaching college, the publishers were starting to talk about offering textbooks electronically, rather than a paper version. Sure, back then (late 80s to early 90s) the technology that we had in terms of e-readers was different. We had computers, but not the level of tablets and smart phones that exist today.
I remember this topic being brought up at a staff meeting by some of my fellow profs. You see, I taught science, and my first response was it would be great not to have to lug around all those big textbooks. At the time the subject went nowhere because the Dean (in my department) didnât feel that publishers would be changing anytime soon. Seems that he was right. Although we did have an information session from a publisher there was still not a lot of movement for several years.
There was a study published in 1997 by a person named Levy. A quote from that study says:
âThe development of digital libraries is participating in a general societal trend toward shallower, more fragmented, less concentrated reading.â
In fact there was a study 11 years later that demonstrates this very clearly. In this study people agreed to read a certain piece of text and it was read on a computer screen. The study tracked the movement of the eyeballs to determine not only how much was read, but in what fashion the text was read.
Whatâs really interesting about this study is that the people who took part agreed to read a certain amount of text and then lied about it. Lying might be a strong term. The people honestly felt that they had fulfilled their instructions but the eye tracking results indicated that only 20% of the text was read. When they studied the eye tracking movements, they discovered that generally reading is not a smooth process moving from left to right across the screen. Typically eyes wander over the text, stopping briefly before moving forward or going backwards over text that has been read. Readers tend to fixate or stop on longer words or ones of a different format and they tend to skip over short words. Secondly the beginning of any text is read more thoroughly than the end. This behavior carries forward to websites. Iâm sure youâve heard that you need to put your most important information above the fold or at the top half of the screen.
So what are the takeaways from this and other studies?
1) Users scan and skim electronic content. The way to deal with this scanning and skimming is to use things like bolded headlines and subheads. If you can include a keyword in a heading or subheading, the person reading will pick up on that word. In addition, you can use devices like bulleted lists to catch attention. The use of pictures is also encouraged.
2) Use plain language - People who are reading electronic sources want to get to the bottom of what theyâre reading. As weâll talk about in a bit, if somebody is actually invested in what theyâre reading they will pay a lot more attention. Things like flowery language and excessive descriptions donât really work well in electronic text.
3) Images -There are different kinds of images that you can use in newsletters. Images that convey a message or state information tend to be paid attention to more than decorative pictures. To apply this directly to newsletters, an image that conveys information about an upcoming book signing would be paid attention to more than the text describing the book signing. As weâll discuss further, decorative pictures can also be used as section breaks, or places the reader can rest their eyes.
4) Standard features - Studies show that people who read from electronic sources respond better to norms than differences. If we use the example of a website, people are going to anticipate a header at the top, a section of content, perhaps containing a blog post, and a sidebar off to one side. Sites that depart from this norm create a sense of frustration especially when viewed on a really small screen. If we take this information and apply it to a newsletter, readers are going to anticipate a header graphic at the top of the newsletter. Underneath that some sort of a welcome message and then the information that theyâre seeking, typically in blocks. Weâll talk more about these blocks in the next chapter.
As I mentioned thereâs been several studies over the years looking at how people read on electronic sources. One of the most interesting things that has been found is that the more a person reads on an electronic device or source, the more automatic the scanning behavior is. So if you compare the reading behavior of a 70 or 80-year-old with the reading behavior of a teenager, the teenager will predominantly read in a scanning behavior, whereas the older person will spend less time reading in this fashion.
The take away from this is to consider your audience. If you are writing a newsletter aimed at younger people, you can guarantee theyâre going to scan. However if youâre aiming your newsletter at an older audience their reading behavior will be somewhat different.
But one point to keep in mind before we move on, is the vast majority of people nowadays view their email on phones. The percentages will differ for different age groups and different geographic regions, but as high as 80% of all email is read on phones. Optimizing electronic sources of reading for viewing on mobile devices is so important that in the last year Google has stepped in with a number of rules. Included are what pop-ups can look like and ensuring that websites are mobile responsive in order to rank on a Google search. Google is concerned with mobile behavior and so should you be.