How People Read Materials on the Web
Nielsen (1997) described how users read on the web as follows:
“They don't. People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.
Writing for the Web: General Principles
With the knowledge of how users read on the web, some general guidelines should be considered for effective web writing.
1. Employ “scannable text, using (Neilsen, 1997)
a. highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
b. meaningful sub-headings (not "clever" ones)
c. bulleted lists
d. one idea per paragraph
e. the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion.
f. half the word count (or less) than conventional writing