Summary: The texts are the most relevant contents of a website. These should be prepared and produced correctly to be attractive to visitors.
The most important content of all web pages found in the texts, even in cases where the images occupy a much larger percentage of the space on the page. This makes the web designer must pay special attention to how the texts available.
The web is a tool that has special characteristics. Driven by a simplistic reasoning, we might assume that the availability of texts in the design of a website could be similar than do books or magazines. However, reading in the print media is different to that of a monitor.
Scientific studies suggest that fatigue experienced in reading text on a computer is much greater than in the print media, and the reading speed is faster in the past.
In addition, due to the expectations placed on either medium (internet users expect everything to be instantaneous ), the time attention of users of these two media is different, being much shorter in users websites.
These very special Web page features, makes the production, disposition and how the texts are presented, must be especially careful, since neglect this aspect could lead to a loss of users .
Copywriting for the web
The most important thing to write texts for web pages is that you should use about half of the words used in the print media to develop a theme, taking into account what has already been said about the attention span of internet users .
Each paragraph should contain only an idea . This greatly speeds up and simplifies the reading comprehension of the text in general. And decreased attention span, the quality of it is significantly lower in the electronic media.
Each topic or subtopic, must be separated from the rest by applying captions containing clear and useful information about the content that readers will find in the following paragraphs. This allows Biographsworld texts outlining simplifies understanding and give more speed reading, it will increase the reader’s attention.
Quantity and quality of texts on the web
The length of texts on a web page can be variable. It depends, as might be expected, the subject matter thereof. The amount of text that is necessary to employ a page intended for games is completely different from that required a web of literature. In this type of evaluation, it must necessarily intervene common sense.
On a page in which a theme (like this) in which develops the text is the key element , the length of the texts will be considerable and probably what users are looking for. However, on the home page of the site, the presentation of a theme, bidding page or a product description, it is best to place short and specific texts, with catch phrases that attract the attention of users.
In cases where the length of texts to be employed exceed two pages, it is best not to extend indefinitely the page down, since the use of scroll bars permanently is not liked by users internet. In this case, one might consider dividing the topic in two or more pages using a good navigation system that allows users to easily navigate between them.
The production quality of texts should be optimal. Simplicity in the development of phrases and sentences, good syntax, spelling flawless and careful style, can make the reader reaches the end of the text, while not taking care of these aspects, possibly the percentage of readers who completed the reading is very low.
Availability of texts on a web page
All text must be initiated by a title perfectly visible and clearly differentiated from the rest of the texts. This header text must be bold and explicit enough so that users have a complete idea of the topic in the following paragraphs.
As it stated in the previous section, the necessary arrangement of text into paragraphs , separated by a visible spacing, so that a text does not print it is a large block that never ends.
Paragraphs should not be very long, since the blocks of texts of many lines, means that many users are lost when changing line, which is extremely frustrating and causes the concentration and attention is lost.
Within paragraphs, the most important concepts and keywords is desirable that are more visible than the rest of the text, which must be marked. The best way is to use bold . Typeface italic is also used for this purpose, but the increased visibility is less than when the bold are used, so it is preferable to use the first method.
Instead, the emphasis is strongly discouraged because it causes some difficulties in reading the words; also generally underlined words are often used for links, which can be confusing to users.
Platinum web media, web page design company in Adelaide, Australia.
The text color
The use of color, the texts must meet some basic rules that should be followed strictly, in order to avoid that the public has difficulty reading or maintaining attention.
The text in a single color , usually monotonous, which can cause the user to find the proposal unattractive. Usually, to make the text longer monotonous, simply include different colors to headings and subheadings so that the overall appearance is displayed attractively.
In other cases, the use of various colors is given by the type of page that is being done. A page intended for graphics, painting or any other issue related to color, may require that the text blocks have different colors. This is also often used in corporate pages, and the text can bring colors that identify the company.
The use of color is often also relevant in the contrast of the text on the background on which it is located. This is particularly important in the case of pages with images as background , as in such cases, reading is even more complex than in the pages that have a solid background color.
In all cases, the colors used in the texts must be compatible with the palette of the page as text blocks are part of the visual proposal of the page. The texts must follow the same design principles as the rest of the page.
Good practice in text
- Proper use of capitalization, bold and italics. In some cases, words written entirely with capital letters used to highlight a text, what is effective. However, misuse of this resource can make the text look monotonous, since the case is more uniform than lowercase letters. Something similar happens with the use of bold (the abuse causes text to acquire much relevance in the design) and the (notoriously harder to read than normal letters) italics.
- Do not use text effects. The effects marquee, blinking text or moving text made with some scripts, usually they should be avoided, as they have counterproductive effects.
- Using a maximum of three different sources and two or three colors for text.
- Make that links distinguish very well the rest of the text.
- Using a proper spacing between lines, paragraphs, headings and subheadings, indents, etc.
