Comments on: Myth: People Read Less Online

By: How reading a book made me think about reading online « jennijuniper

How reading a book made me think about reading online « jennijuniper — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:53:51 +0000

[...] Kissane puts it succinctly in her blog post on the subject, “people read on the web almost exactly the way they read anywhere else: they skim till they find [...]

By: Carl114

Carl114 — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:52:57 +0000

Exactly! People read the pages just like a newspaper. Or anything real. Any articles that are more than 10 years ago are completely irrelevant. When a man thinks, he will:). People send links to articles from the year 97 or 2001. This is total crap! The Internet is changing, as well as users. These old articles are already useless.

People access the text on the Web as well as to anything else. Just read what interests them.

By: Let’s Move On From Inverted Triangle Writing - Signyourbikeout - Signyourbikeout

Let’s Move On From Inverted Triangle Writing - Signyourbikeout - Signyourbikeout — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:14:52 +0000

[...] in order to bring us back to a landscape with richness and diversity.For years we misinterpreted how people read online and assumed that they always wanted the information fast so they could get in and back out. [...]

By: Not reading but scanning? What to do with text, text and more text at Danegeld

Not reading but scanning? What to do with text, text and more text at Danegeld — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:34:31 +0000

[...] too much text”. It looks like I’m not alone with this – Erin Kissane’s post on the people read less online myth has attracted some incisive comments. The upshot is that people handle text on the Web in the same [...]

By: Exposing The Biggest Lie Ever Told About Blogging

Exposing The Biggest Lie Ever Told About Blogging — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:04:05 +0000

[...] Myth: People Read Less Online [...]

By: Good Shovel

Good Shovel — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:31:39 +0000

I agree with the spirit of this article, but I believe a more accurate statement of the contemporary user is that he/she does not, in fact, READ online. He/she VIEWS.

This isn’t bad, this isn’t stupid, and this doesn’t mean information isn’t absorbed as well–perhaps better and with more accurate context–than by reading every single word. It does mean that we producers of online communication must give shape to our information, provide a clear path.

By: rsgracey

rsgracey — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:35:32 +0000

Absolutely. I explain to content owners that the content has to “support scanning” because it increases people’s ability to absorb the content: Making a page scannable increases readers’ attention span because they can better decide where and on what to focus that attention.

Thanks for the great post!!!!

Stephen

By: Lettura e scansione dei giornali on e off-line - Alberto Mucignat

Lettura e scansione dei giornali on e off-line - Alberto Mucignat — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:14:25 +0000

[...] sui comportamenti di lettura dei giornali on e off-line mi arriva attraverso uno spunto interessante: (…) people read on the web almost exactly the way they read anywhere else: they skim till [...]

By: Carolyn Wood

Carolyn Wood — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:29:35 +0000

Thanks for bringing this up. Yes, people read AND scan. The trick is to make it scannable so people can see if they want to read in depth or so they can find what they want quickly, and then once they know they want to read something, they’re willing to dig in and read it. Of course, as with anything else, it depends. Buying shoes may be different from choosing a computer or learning how to improve your work or reading a book review. But meanwhile, all the talk of “you have to have bullet points and it has to be short” — regardless of the type of content— makes some clients fearful of providing the information that visitors want or need and some designers nervous about having more than a blip of content in places where more would be better.

I’d also add that some articles at ALA and elsewhere, including by Mandy Brown, have pointed to making the page and typography readable and the importance of white space. But that’s true when speaking of print, too, as you imply in your post here.

By: Dave Stanton

Dave Stanton — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:09:03 +0000

I spent thousands of hours on this topic working on the EyeTrack07 project and during my doctoral research. As with many things, this myth came from overgeneralizations. Same thing holds true for our data — context and assumptions are critical in understanding how information is consumed and processed.