How People Engage with our Web Content Content Management Support - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

How People Engage with our Web Content

Content Management Support Team

Scott Castle

• MSc Strategic Information Systems Management
• Building Killer Content into Your Website
• Content Strategy
• Engaging Stakeholders to Buy-in
• Persuasive Web Design
• TCP/IP and Web Server
• UX Deliverables
• UX Design
• UI Design
• Web Page Design
• Writing for the Web

Education and Training

Experience

• User Centred Design (Desktop Systems) since 1994
• Web Solutions and Projects since 1997
• Web Page Manager at Sheffield since 2003

How the web is different

How the web is different from other communication channels

• Unfinished and unstructured
• The web is a ‘pull’ technology
• The ‘search’ function
• Links
• How to understand and get the best from the web environment
• How to improve the performance of our pages on SERPS
• How to use links to support the user and the University’s objective

Future sessions will examine:

How people behave on the web

How people behave on the web:

• Goals driven
• Impatient
• At fast pace
• Guess
• They look for direction
• Distracted by poor design
• They are happy to make do (Satisficing)
• How we ensure our content keeps people engaged
• How we get people to the information they need quickly
• How we reduce distractions and improve progress

Future sessions will examine:

What drives people to seek out our web

• To meet specific needs
• To extract information
• To complete tasks
• How to help site visitors completion rates
• How to improve the quality of information on our pages
• How to improve the features of our pages to meet audience needs

Future sessions will examine:

Why would people want to come to our site?

How people find our pages

1. Search

• 2. Browsing
• 3. Referrals
• How to improving Search Engine Optimisation
• How we can improve the browsing experience of users
• How we can improve referrals to our pages

Findability depends on: Future sessions will examine:

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Where users click in SERP

Position in search results listing Clicks on this link position 1 51% 2 16% 3 6% 4 6% 5 5% 6 4% 7 2% 8 1%

Source: NN group

How people use our pages

Our pages are likely to be usable if they are:

• Easy to accessible relevant content
• Easy to learn how to use the pages
• Easy to achieve their objective
• Easy to recall when they revisit the site
• How to increase accessibility for everyone
• How to increase success rates for task completion
• How to increase clarity while increasing conciseness

Future sessions will examine:

How people scan our pages

Scannability

1. Scanning

• 2. Gaze patterns
• 3. Pathways
• 4. Keywords
• How to formatting content for scanning
• How to organise content so that it is learnable and memorable
• How to use identify and use audience keywords to improve scannability

Future sessions will examine:

F-Shaped Pattern For Reading

Heatmaps from user eyetracking studies

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

Type of page Users who scrolled Homepage (1st) 23% Homepage (4th+) 14% Interior 42% SERP 47%

How people read our pages

Reading:

• Reading and the brain
• Legibility
• Readability
• Comprehension
• How to make content clear, concise, complete, correct and compelling
• How to improve the readability of pages
• How to ensure people read and understand the important content

Future sessions will examine:

Fixations and saccades

What Stops People Using Our Pages

People leave our pages as a consequence of:

• Thoughts
• Feelings
• Beliefs
• How to prioritise content and give user fewer and easier choices
• How we make our pages easier and more rewarding to use
• How we build a trusting relationship with our audience

Future sessions will examine:

In summary we need to improve

• Findability
• help search engines find our pages
• Scanability
• help people find relevant copy on our pages
• Readability
• help people read and understand our copy quickly
• Usability
• help people achieve what they need to achieve
• Accessibility
• designed to meet the needs of everyone
• Engagement
• keep the attention of our site visitors
• Credibility
• keep them coming back

Further Reading (Books)

Krug, Steve (2004) “Don’t Make Me Think!”, 2nd edition, New Riders

• Chapter 1: Don’t Make Me Think
• Chapter 2: How We Really Use the Web

McGovern, Gerry (2006) “Killer Web Content“, A & C Black Publishers

• Chapter 6: Search: How to Get Found

Nielsen, Jakob and Loranger, Hoa (2006) “Prioriting Web Usability” New Riders

• Chapter 2: The Web User Experience

Redish, Ginny (2012) “Letting Go of the Words”

• Chapter 1: “Content, Content, Content”, 2 Edition, Morgan Kaufmann

Richards, Sarah (2017) “Content Design” Content Design London

• Chapter 2 : The Science of Reading

Further Reading (Web Articles)

Castle, Scott “Word to the Webwise” https://awordtothewebwise.wordpress.com/

• Chapter 1: How People Really Use Your Web Pages
• Chapter 2: Basics of Web Design for Usability
• Chapter 9: Findability
• Chapter 30: Legacy of Print

McGovern, Gerry “Block reading: how we read on the Web” http://gerrymcgovern.com/block-reading-how-we-read-on-the-web/ McGovern, Gerry “The best websites are useful and ugly” http://gerrymcgovern.com/the-best-websites-are-useful-and-ugly/ McGovern, Gerry “How Web is different from print” http://gerrymcgovern.com/how-web-is-different-from-print/ Nielsen, Jakob “Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design” https://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-web-design/ Nielsen, Jakob “SEO and Usability” https://www.nngroup.com/articles/seo-and-usability/ Pernice, Kara “F-Shaped Pattern of Reading on the Web” https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/ Redshaw, Kerry “Web Writing vs Print Writing” http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/guide_web-vs-print.htm