A client was making a major announcement to their list, a big change in how their offers were structured and priced, and naturally wanted me to look over the announcement.
The substance of the announcement was fine, clear, direct, non-confusing, answered a few questions.
However, I mentioned that there are design factors that need to be accounted for in online reading. Let me share with you my approach so that your readers don’t miss important details, or maybe just don’t read your stuff at all.
The assumption: online reading is distracted reading.
When I read a book, I’m away from my screens, I’m down deep into whatever it is. (Lately I’ve been reading Debt: A 5000 year history by David Graeber, as well as re-reading a YA novel, Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse. Just so you don’t think I’m all high-brow.)
I’m all in, and long paragraphs and many pages through, I’m not distractible.
But, when I’m online, I’m totally distractible. Reading an article, then someone on my team pings me on chat, which I reply to, then I realize I have an hour before facilitating a coaching call for our Learning Community and there’s at least one thing I want to get to before that.
Distracted reading.
It’s not always like this, but it easily can be, when your email, or Medium article, or social media post lands in front of me.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I’m very happy with how I manage my work time. Please do NOT send me any suggestions on how to improve my workflow, or how to remove distractions from my environment.
The One Thought
When designing online reading for your audience, I want you to be thinking this one thought:
“How can I help them re-enter what I wrote without them accidentally missing an important part, or being forced to re-read something they’ve already read?”
This one thought translates into three very specific design elements.
Design Element One: Subheads and bolded sentences.
Subheadlines and bolded sentences or phrases allow someone to scan. They are, for a short article, like chapter titles.
This article, for instance, has the following chapter titles:
The assumption: online reading is distracted reading.
The One Thought
Design Element One
Design Element Two
Design Element Three
I’m going to try something risky
Your turn
If you get distracted reading this, you’re going to be able to come back to this and jump right back into the section you were in, without having to re-read half the article to find your place.
*** The tip for when you can’t use bold? ***
Because on some platforms, you can’t use bold. In that case, use asterisks, or something similar, just like I did here.
Design Element Two: Short paragraphs.
You want to use short paragraphs in your content.
Really short. The very longest should be 4-5 lines.
You want to use short paragraphs on your posts. And on your website. In your articles. And in your email replies to interested people.
I’m not kidding. Because when you write really, really long paragraphs and they go on and on without stopping about every last thing you want to say, then it becomes this block of text that’s hard to read and follow. Your readers become frightened to start the paragraph, and, if they do actually start the paragraph, they get lost in the middle and never reach the end. And if they never reach the end, then they never see the next paragraph and basically the gig is up, because they’ve missed the point of what you were writing about, and you may as well never have written it in the first place. And, because you lose them as readers you never hear back from them, you’ve gotten no response and so you can start to feel frustrated. Then angry. Then sad. Then you begin to fill with despair and wonder if anyone cares about you at all, and whether you should even be in business, or even in the world. Maybe you should just give it all up and go get a job in a cafe. When, it’s really not that bad, it’s just because your paragraphs were too long. Make sense? Short paragraphs.
No more than four or five lines max.
‘Nuff said.
Design Element Three: Just enough white space.
There is a second reason that short paragraphs help. Every time a paragraph ends, there’s this space between the end of the paragraph and the beginning of the next.
See it, right there, just above this sentence?
That’s white space. White space tells the reader, “Hey, something is starting here.” That’s where eyes can enter. If there are frequent places for eyes to enter, then they can come back in easily.
Strangely enough, the white space doesn’t seem to create more distractibility. If anything, I think it works against being distracted, because with a new paragraph starting, it’s easier to keep moving. That’s part of the psychology of TikTok, where 15-60 second videos keep you on the app in a strangely addictive way.
But, what the white space between paragraphs, and above and below subheads does, is it gives room for the distracted but returning reader to easily re-enter the text.
I’m going to try something risky.
Although it’s probably already happened. Stop reading, go look at something else online, and then come back. Do it right now.
How easily did you find exactly where you were before? How easily did you re-enter the text?
If I’m right, it was pretty darn easy for you to come back in. Don’t you want your own pieces to be that easy to back to, since your readers are going to get distracted anyway?
Your turn.
When you think about what you learned here, what could you most easily change in your own writing online to make it easier on your distracted readers?
With love,
Mark Silver, M. Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
2 Responses
Very helpful, Mark, thanks. I have to acknowledge that I am lazy about headers, but this makes it very clear why to use them
I’m leaving a reply so you know I finished the article 🙂
I love this tip!
(Funny demo with the long paragraph!) I hear ‘white space’ is also much more accessible for people using e-readers: audio readers!