This article draws on recognized UX and other authorities to describe how people read digital media. In short, most of your readers don’t have patience and don’t read thoroughly.
Customers skim your docs
Readers barely touch down long enough to get the gist of all those paragraphs, illustrations, and steps you labor over.
That doesn’t mean your efforts are wasted. It means you have to create docs customers can skim successfully.
Study results: Users read 28%
Jakob Nielsen of The Nielsen Group, UX gurus in Denmark, has exhaustively studied how people read on the web.
A study showed that “on the average webpage, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely”. References:
I hear tech writers saying, “But my webpages aren’t average….” Oh, just stop it now. You’re not Hemingway. Nor are you Shonda Rhimes.
Exposure to digital content has changed how people read
Digital content and experiences have changed how people read and process information. People tend to read less deeply and spend less time processing what they read.
Cognitive patience is in short supply, meaning people are less willing and able process difficult concepts or steps.
If you have just a bit of spare cognitive patience, I recommend listening to Ezra Klein’s podcast on Deep Reading, in which he discusses how people read with scholar Maryanne Wolf.
What can tech writers do?
It’s likely that you are writing for a new-ish medium (the web) using old assumptions and techniques. Instead of blaming the reader, blaming technology, or engaging in wishful thinking, learn some new skills.
Writing techniques that make your content more readable will also make it findable and more accessible. I’ll cover how to write skimmable docs in my next blog post.
Next: How to write for skimmers
Categories: Content strategy, Data, Fun with tech docs
Chasing the Long Tail 
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