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Subject:Re: list dedicated to Web Site Editing From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- AXIONET -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 10 Nov 1997 21:49:26 -0500
Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- FS -dot- COM -dot- AU> wrote:
>- often Joe will scroll down one screen. Sometimes Joe won't >scroll down even once. Rarely will Joe scroll down more than >once.
>- therefore, try to fit your content on to two of these >default-sized screens if you want to be pretty sure that Joe >will read it all.
That's the conventional wisdom. However, I've heard a few people say
that it's far simpler: people will scroll down if they find what they're
reading interesting or easy to read.
If they don't scroll, then the content or the layout is at fault.
I'm not sure that I subscribe to this theory. However, it may have some
truth. I know that dense prose blocks put me off when I read on-line. So
does pretentious diction (for example, one website I saw recently
assaulted the language with "heterogeneous databases").
Neither of these things would put me off if I read them on paper in the
right setting (and I won't talk about the outrages I performed on the
language in my academic days). But if I stop readingwhen faced with
those things on-line, I think there's an excellent chance that the
average reader will have stopped long before.
"So be ready night and day,
Stand up for your right of way:
There's a bully in the alley--he'll do his worst,
There's a bully in the alley--he won't fear your curse,
There's a bully in the alley--get your boot in first,
That's what they tell us."
--Oyster Band, "Bully in the Alley"
