Unlike traditional printed media, most websites are visited by people in a hurry; each individual page has very little time to make an impression on a user. Those users have a specific goal in mind, and little patience for a site that doesn’t make it as easy as possible to achieve it.
When building your site and writing your copy, be aware of the following time scales:
Writing for Skimming Readers
The majority of readers online spend less than half a second looking at any single element on the page. Eyetracking studies have revealed that a user will look at most webpage elements for approximately 0.1 seconds. Graphics and headlines should be clear and easy to read in one brief glance.
Use of headings and emphasis will make text easier to scan – and has the bonus effect of creating optimised content for search engines as well. Highlight critical information - but don’t be tempted to emphasise the whole of your text. Your goal is to create text that can be scanned for key phrases.
Download Times and User Control
Your site navigation also needs to react quickly, particularly if you have expanding menu items – site users want to feel as though they are in control of their actions and causing something to happen on the screen. Optimise your menus to react within half a second to retain your user’s sense of control. However, if you’re creating menus that react on a “hover” of the mouse, don’t make things happen too quickly – flickering menus can disorient your users, and if the menu disappears before your user can click on the option they want, they are not likely to try again.
Be aware of page sizes and dynamic elements, too – your pages should load content within one second whenever possible.
Bounce Rates – the Ten Second Rule
The longer a visitor has to wait for a page to load, the less likely they are to stay on the page. The majority of users will leave a site that takes more than 10 seconds to load. Using tables for layout can slow down your page loading times – replace tables with CSS elements when possible to ensure that page text will load as quickly as possible.
How Long Does It Take?
Simplify the basic tasks on your site. If it takes a new user longer than a minute to complete a straightforward task, they are unlikely to finish it. Registering for a new user account, watching an instructional video or completing an enquiry form should be quick and painless for your customers. Don’t overcomplicate forms – make sure they only ask for what you really need, and that processing that form provides feedback confirming the successful enquiry immediately.
Keep the user time scales in mind when writing copy and building forms – it will benefit the search engines as well as your customers!
