The Reality of Readability
Did you know?
50% of American adults are unable to read at an 8th-grade level. They can read some words and some sentences, but larger ideas and themes do not connect.
The average reading age of the UK population is 9 years. The Guardian has a reading age of 14 and the Sun has a reading age of 8.
People do not read the web. They scan. The average online user will read about 20% of your blog or article. If they do not relate to or find a headline or sentence that is interesting, we have lost them.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommends a grade 6-7 reading level for all health materials.
In most businesses, highly educated people are everywhere. Many employees have Master’s degrees, extensive work experience, and tremendous product knowledge. We also have “the curse of knowledge”. This means we unconsciously assume that others have the same understanding of our industry, or terms, vocabulary, etc. that we have.
However, most content authors and approvers are not representative of readers. We have to rethink our approach to online content! How do we create content that is helpful, provides relief, and ensures that we are not speaking “over (or under) their heads”?
How to Write for the Web
Focus on Readability
What is Readability? Readability is the ease with which a reader can understand written text. This relies on both the words and design. Readability scores measure how likely it is that the intended reader will easily understand our written information. Writers should aim for a readability score of 8th grade or lower. Note – THIS IS NOT DUMBING THINGS DOWN. This is focusing on ease of communication and using creativity to get there.
How to make your content more readable.
Write short sentences. More sentences are better than longer sentences.
Use the less-complex versions of common words. Choose words that our customers use.
Make paragraphs shorter. Chunk up paragraphs into single ideas.
Include lots of headings – see below for more.
Test your readability and then rewrite if needed
Check the readability of your content while you write. Here are some free tools we can use to assess readability.
Microsoft Word has a reading score tool built in. To use it, just go to Review >> Spelling & Grammar. Go through the spell-check. When it’s finished, the final screen will display lots of extra information about your text, including the various readability scores.
Readable scores your text against several readability algorithms so you get a bunch of different scores, plus a grade from Readable’s proprietary scoring system. It also points out the hard-to-read text so you can refine it.
Hemingway Editor uses the Automated Readability Index. It is a visual editor that highlights sentences you can split or shorten. The app singles out very complex sentences. It also picks up long words, offering alternatives. And you can use the app to find passive voices and excessive adverbs.
Lastly, focus on content construction for the web.
Google is scanning and trying to understand our content as well. Web pages have to use scan-able text. Including headings, descriptions and bullets will help search engine process our content.
H1 Tag - should only be used once for your headline/title.
H2 Tags - are for major subtopics within your content piece.
H3 Tags - break down facets of your subtopic(s).
Image descriptions
Add a short synopsis for Google
Bulleted Lists - Google loves them
