How Long is Too Long?

The dilemma we face as communicators is the very real problem that our readers don’t like to read. At least they don’t like to read much. 

A few years ago the highly credible web usability research firm, Nielsen Norman, did a study to find out how much the average person was actually reading on the average web page.

For starters, they found the typical web page contained just fewer than 600 words. When they put those pages in front of website visitors, the average of all readers took in only 28% of those words. Putting that into a more tangible stat, this means readers would take in just 168 words and then move on. 

So, as we toil away to craft the perfect paragraph, while shoe-horning in all the facts, features, and benefits our managers and their managers would like to see included, we have to be very judicious in our choice of words. That’s because 168 words simply isn’t very many. In fact, it’s exactly this many.

Photo by josh A. D. on Unsplash