May 2007 Review: Ginny Redish

by Michael McAuliffe, Meeting Reporter

Nationally recognized usability expert and author, Dr. Ginny Redish, Ph.D. addressed the May meeting of Lone Star Community (LSC) and the DFW Usability Professionals’ Association. Dr. Redish detailed strategies that we can use to produce effective Web content and shared practical examples of the challenges that technical communicators face when creating and adapting content for the Web.

Dr. Redish began the evening’s discussion by examining the goals that drive viewers to a Web site. Most viewers, according to Dr. Redish, visit Web sites to achieve goals that are not specifically related to the Internet. In most cases, this goal is to find an answer to a question. The Web is a convenient delivery device, but your viewers are likely more interested in achieving their goals than in experiencing your Web site.

So, if people are visiting your Web site to achieve a particular goal, how can you best satisfy them and make sure that they become repeat viewers? Dr. Redish’s research indicates that the three primary requirements viewers have for a Web site are:

• High quality content
• Frequently updated content
• Easy-to-use design.

The theory that Dr. Redish uses to link these three requirements is, “Every use of the Web site is a conversation started by the user. You have to satisfy the need that they came for before they are receptive to marketing. Most people, most of the time, are too busy too read,” said Dr. Redish. “They want quick answers to their questions.” We can therefore assume that the quality content we produce is most valuable to viewers when they can find what they are looking for quickly.

Dr. Redish cited usage statistics that detail the amount of time we can expect from viewers when they visit our Web sites. On average, our viewers will spend:

• 25 - 30 seconds on a home page
• 45 - 60 seconds on an interior page
• 30 seconds using online help.

Perhaps most importantly, viewers will spend less than two minutes looking for information before they abandon a site. If we make our Web sites hard to navigate or obscure information with marketing, we will lose the viewers for whom we created the content.

So, if our viewers don’t want to read, why do we create online content? We may hope that our content educates, persuades, or entertains, but Dr. Redish suggested that, fundamentally, our content serves a more utilitarian purpose. Online content allows us to communicate in a way that is less expensive and requires fewer resources than traditional telephone or print-based communication. By empowering viewers to find the information they need without direct support, we save money while, hopefully, increasing profits.

Dr. Redish concluded the evening by suggesting techniques for producing content that helps viewers find the information they want. A few of these techniques were:

• Create clear, question oriented titles that clearly state the purpose of the content.
  Question-oriented titles speak directly to the user’s needs because viewers are usually looking for an answer to a question.

• Use entire phrases for hyperlinks and avoid using “click here.”
  Viewers who use screen reader technologies will more efficiently navigate your site if your hyperlinks clearly support your organizational structure.

• Avoid placing mission statements or welcome statements on your home page.
  If your viewers are interested in reading this information, they will navigate to it. Forcing them to read information that is not directly related to their goal wastes their time and encourages them to abandon your site.

• Attempt to organize information so that viewers perform a minimum of scrolling.
  Separating information with hard dividers or large amounts of vertical space suggest that the information is not as important.