Get to the point. Make your words count. Make your formatting clear.

Don't take it from me

Read this article by Jakob Nielsen from 1997 on the importance of scannable text. It still applies today.

Here’s a summary of Nielsen’s rules:

• Highlight keywords
• Use meaningful sub-headings
• Use bulleted lists for lists of three or more items
• Write one idea per paragraph
• Use the inverted pyramid writing style. Start with the conclusion.
• Write half the word count or less than conventional writing.

According to The Nielsen Norman Group research, users read 28% of the words on the page at most.

Ask what unnecessary content are you making your readers sift through to find the information they need?

Deliver the Most Valuable Information First

Start with the conclusion. This can be difficult for academics who are trained to start with the foundation and build up to a conclusion.

Headings and Subheadings

These are critical to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Make your headings meaningful and clear. They are the best clue for your readers to find what they seek in your content.

H1

Only use once per page

H2

Clear, concise, use liberally.

Once a user has scanned for what they need, they may actually switch to reading word-for-word.

H3

Used to breakdown a specific content block. If information becomes complex to the point of requiring breaking into further sub-sections beyond H3, consider breaking the content into separate pages.

Text Links

Highlight meaningful keywords and phrases with links that help identify where you’re taking users with a click. Linking keywords provide the user with a quick way to find more information and it changes the word’s formatting which makes contextual links easy to pick out when scanning.

Do not use "Click Here"

Generic link text like “Click here,” “Learn more,” and “Read more” doesn’t help users scan a page. It also gives them no indication of what they’ll get if they click, unless they stop and read the surrounding context.

A link or button should make sense out of context.

For example:
Bad: Click here to view the tuition deadlines.
Good: View tuition deadlines

Lists

Which is easier to read and understand?

List 1

Unbleached all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, granulated sugar.

List 2

• Unbleached all-purpose flour
• Baking soda
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Granulated sugar

If you are listing three or more things, use bullets.

Emphasis Formatting

You’re already laying out content priority through page structure, headings, and hyperlinks. Other formatting should be used as minimally as possible. The more formatting variations appear on a page, the less impact they have.

Italics should be reserved for use where grammatically correct, like publication titles or names of scholarly works.

Bold should be used in very limited amounts to draw attention to a keyword, date, or a specific fact. Bold should not be used as a subheading format.

Underline should NOT be used for emphasis on the web. Historically, users expect underlined web copy to be hyperlinks.

Don’t combine emphasis formatting options. Don’t use both bold and italicize. Less is more. When everything is emphasized, nothing is.

Accessibility Considerations

All images are required to have alt tags. Alt tags provide context to screen readers or users who have images disabled in their browser.

Text-based content should never be provided in image format only.

Do not use all caps

Avoid writing full words, headings, labels, or sentences in all caps because it can hurt readability, and some assistive technologies may interpret all-caps words as acronyms or initialisms and read them letter by letter.

For example:

• NASA may be read as a word.
• FBI may be read letter by letter.
• REGISTER NOW might be read as words by some screen readers, but could be emphasized, pronounced oddly, or treated less naturally by others.
• Older tools, certain settings, and some text-to-speech engines are more likely to spell out all-caps text.