And
yada yada yada.
One of my favorite Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoons
has two panels. The first panel - titled: "What We Say to Dogs" - has a
man is scolding his dog. The man's word-balloon says: "Okay, Ginger! I've had
it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage,
or else!?"
The
second panel - titled: "What They Hear" - is drawn exactly like the first
panel. But this time the man's word-balloon says: "Blah blah GINGER blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah."
As
a dog owner, I know this is true about dogs! Did you know this can also be true
about your Web site? Very often, text just takes up space because it is never
read.
Usability
expert Steve Krug offers a solution for unnecessary text in his book, “Don’t Make
Me Think.” Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half
of what's left. In other words, be ruthless in your quest for good content.
What kind of text can you get rid of? Here are two examples to get you
started:
Happy Talk
We all know happy talk - it usually starts
with the words "Welcome to..." It is supposed to welcome us to the site, tell
us how great it is or what we're about to see in the section we've just entered.
Unlike good promotional copy, it conveys no useful information. Get rid of it!
Don't focus on saying how great you are, focus on how great your solutions
to your reader’s problems are.
Instructions
Face it - no one is going to read instructions - at least not until repeated attempts
at "muddling through" have failed. Get rid of them! A clear navigation system
is better than a list of instructions.
What
difference does it make? - It makes the useful content more prominent.
- It
reduces the noise level of the page.
- It makes the pages shorter. Users
see more of the page without scrolling.
Get rid
of useless text and welcome visitors to your Web site with a clean page, useful
content and intuitive navigation instead.
