Designing for the Web is different from designing for print documents and I think the best way to explain these differences is to look at how readers read the content on Web and print.
Nielsen, Schemenaur and Fox (1999) discovered that 79% of readers scan the pages on Web. Therefore, it is a good idea to make the word count on Web half of what is in print.
Take for example this webpage from The Environment Agency. Notice how little words there are in the page and how simple the sentence structures are? Furthermore, the sub-heads are highlighted to create a visual hierarchy, providing readers with a visual cue on the important topics they can read on (Wilson 2007). Readers can click on these sub-heads that will link them to another page. Let's say, we clicked on 'Prepare for flooding'.
In this new page, readers come across more sub-heads on various topics. This allows readers to choose and narrow down specifically which information they are looking for (Nielsen, Schemenaur & Fox 1999). The hyperlink at the bottom also helps add credibility to the webpage as it links readers to other relevant information (Nielsen 1997).
Print documents, like the one below from Aveweb.org, plays with certain laws. There's the law of similarity, where units which look alike are considered as a homogenous grouping (Bernhardt 1986, p. 72). There's also the law of equilibrium, where the layout of information is balanced horizontally, vertically and diagonally so that it's easy on the eyes of readers (Bernhardt 1986, p. 71).
Nielsen, Schemenaur and Fox (1999) discovered that 79% of readers scan the pages on Web. Therefore, it is a good idea to make the word count on Web half of what is in print.
Take for example this webpage from The Environment Agency. Notice how little words there are in the page and how simple the sentence structures are? Furthermore, the sub-heads are highlighted to create a visual hierarchy, providing readers with a visual cue on the important topics they can read on (Wilson 2007). Readers can click on these sub-heads that will link them to another page. Let's say, we clicked on 'Prepare for flooding'.
Print documents, like the one below from Aveweb.org, plays with certain laws. There's the law of similarity, where units which look alike are considered as a homogenous grouping (Bernhardt 1986, p. 72). There's also the law of equilibrium, where the layout of information is balanced horizontally, vertically and diagonally so that it's easy on the eyes of readers (Bernhardt 1986, p. 71).
In addition, one can have non-visual information in print documents compared to Web. It is found that readers read 25% more slowly on screen than on print (Nielsen, Schemanaur & Fox 1999). In the above fact sheet, we see an 'essay' section. To facilitate reading from paragraph to paragraph, transitional links are used (Bernhardt 1986, p. 68).
These aren't the only differences in designing for Web and print. If you would like to read more on this, you should read Jakob Nielsen's article and other articles from WebsiteTips.com.
(ps: you can click on the images to view them at a larger size.)
References:
Bernhardt, SA 1986, 'Seeing the text', College Composition and Communication, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 66-78.
Nielsen, J 1997, 'How users read on the web', Alertbox, 1 October, viewed 11 November 2009, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html>.
These aren't the only differences in designing for Web and print. If you would like to read more on this, you should read Jakob Nielsen's article and other articles from WebsiteTips.com.
(ps: you can click on the images to view them at a larger size.)
References:
Bernhardt, SA 1986, 'Seeing the text', College Composition and Communication, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 66-78.
Nielsen, J 1997, 'How users read on the web', Alertbox, 1 October, viewed 11 November 2009, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html>.
Nielsen, J, Schemenaur, PJ & Fox, J 1999, 'Difference between paper and online production', Sun Microsystems, 13 September, viewed 11 November 2009, <http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/index.html>.
Wilson, D 2007, 'Writing web copy that's easy to scan', Web Marketing Today, 24 July, viewed 11 November 2009, <http://wilsonweb.com/design/danwilson-webcopy.htm>.
Wilson, D 2007, 'Writing web copy that's easy to scan', Web Marketing Today, 24 July, viewed 11 November 2009, <http://wilsonweb.com/design/danwilson-webcopy.htm>.
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