Re: Visitors actually reading text?

Hello:

You asked:

> Am I the only one who thinks that a well-formatted webpage discourages the
>  visitors to scan text rather than read it and that a not so well formatted
>  webpage means that people won't read the text at all - they'll leave? 
>  By well-formatted text I mean having bulleted text, numbered text, using
>  indents, bold text where appropriate and so on.

>From the Yale Web Style Guide:

"Readers experience Web pages in two ways: as a direct medium where pages are 
read online, and as a delivery medium to access information that is later 
downloaded into text files or printed onto paper. Your expectations about how 
readers will typically use your site should govern your design decisions. 
Documents to be read online must be concise, with the amount of graphics 
carefully "tuned" to the bandwidth available to the mainstream of your 
audience. But don't patronize your readers or insult their intelligence. The 
common advice that the Web is dominated by semi-literate "screenagers" who 
won't read more than two sentences in a row is grossly exaggerated, and 
probably irrelevant to you and your audience anyway. You do not need to "dumb 
down" your content or shave it to a meaningless skeleton. Just be aware that 
readers will typically want to print longer pages or more complex 
presentations to read "offline" from paper."

You can read more at:
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html

- Jeff K.

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