Forum Moderators: phranque
How do you set your site(s)up taking into account the reading level of the US?
Do you design your sites with a bonehead in mind or a PHD in mind? Example if you sell your wares do you have a link saying BUY HERE or do you make your customer work for it?
Moderators I did not know if this would be better suited for web design, foo or a different category. So move it as you see fit.
This depends on the audience of the site - but for mainstream selling sites ther content tends to be short sentances with lots of power words!
While marketing departments usually come up with the copy, the one thing that I always tell them is to keep the sentances short, the paragraphs short and use bullets where ever possible.
While I don't believe that all surfers are scanners (in their reading pattern), if your site is more selling than content, the above maxims apply, in my opinion.
To answer your question though, I believe that if you keep the language and grammer and syntax too simplistic (I'm European, so the age profile of your 8th grade is unknown to me) it may alientate people.
That is a good point about alientating people. I have been desiging my site in a manor that tells the customer to Click Here To Buy. It seems to be working fairly well.
8th grade is below High School. I am not sure how you school structure is set up but in the states 8th grade is not highly esteemed as far a reading levels go.
I have been desiging my site in a manor that tells the customer to Click Here To Buy. It seems to be working fairly well.
It's a fine line! At one point you don't want to annoy people with child like language, but the other point ways that quite explicit labels also work!
Labels like "Click Here To Buy" work incredibly well as power labels for things. I suppose that I really meant that the language in paragraphs of text shouldn't be too simplistic.
As I said - a fine line!
I usually keep the copy at around the 8th grade level.
Gunning Fog Index [sheridanc.on.ca]
In a survey of 114 U.S. medical schools, researchers found the average consent form to be written at a 10th-grade reading level, while an estimated one in two American adults read at or below an eighth-grade level. The investigators recommend using language even simpler than that. The government-funded study appears in the Feb. 20 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
That study indicates that half of Americans read at the 8th grade level or below. Ad copy can be written at about the 6th grade reading level and still be effective.
I am British so my perspectve may be different, but I assume your 8th grade is the equivelent to our "leaving school without any qualifications"
It is not just a question of writing down to your readers level, you also have to take into account the impression your site gives and if you write at 8th grade then it can leave the reader thinking that that is the grade YOU are at.
It depends on what your site is doing ( or what your site is for ) but I might have reservations about dealing with someone who is at that level.
It is the same as reading sites written by someone who does not have English as their natural language. In some ways I am full of admiration, they obviously speak my language better than I could speak theirs, but there is still that hesitation about dealing with a site full of bad English. It gives the same impression as the above.
There's an assumption that a college grad or someone with a Ph.D. will write more effectively than someone with an 8th grade education. No one should make that assumption.
If you're selling something online you want your copy to be clear and concise. Most college grads would do well to concentrate on the meaning of what they are writing rather than the vocabulary.
Why use conceptualize if you mean think? Or modality if you mean style? Or parameters if you mean guidelines?
I can write:
At this point in time it is imperative that you prioritize your financial outlays before you begin to optimize your household budget.
Or I can write:
Write down your expenses now, in order of importance, before you begin to improve your household budget.
They both say exactly the same thing. The GFI for the first sentence is 10.4, The GFI for the second sentence is 7.6 (need more sentences to establish a good GFI but you get the idea)
I don't think anyone reading the second sentence would think they were being written down to or that the second sentence indicates that it was written by someone with a poor education.
If a five cent word works there's no reason to use a ten cent word.
It is the same with the style of speech. Street talk is alright on the street, and indeed on some websites, but not on others. Its horses for courses.
