Get bold text right (and your users will thank you)

Bold text is a fantastic tool for web writers. It lets users scan a page to understand quickly what it’s about, and means users don’t have to do the thing they hate doing most online – reading.


No Comments »

Jargon: is it always bad?

Does jargon have another function beyond making people feel that what they do is very important?


1 Comment »

Learn the language of subject lines

Send in your A/B test results for a free research report.


1 Comment »

FAQs: it Helps if you get to the point

Thanks to a series of customer service content projects we’ve been doing, we’ve been learning lots about how best to write FAQs and Help content. One issue that crops up time and again is how long-winded FAQs often are. If an FAQ is a closed question — ie if it requires a yes or no [...]


No Comments »

What’s the best word to get people to click to act?

When we want people to click on a button and carry out an action, there are a number of widely used options for the word or words you put on that button. Off the top of my head, there’s [Go], [Submit], [OK], [Continue], [Confirm], [Proceed], [Select]. But which of these is the most usable, effective [...]


2 Comments »

Eyetracking studies: scan-reading made obvious

It’s good every now and again to remind yourself of what scan-reading looks like in the real world.


No Comments »

Give snippets some space, OK?

Shorter descriptions = more prominent snippets = better search results? It’s only a theory, but we’d thought we’d share it. We know that Google often picks up your description to use as the snippet on a related search results page. There’s a maximum limit for snippets – 156 characters, but one school of thought suggests [...]


No Comments »

[Insert name]: the lazy way to personalise an email?

New research proves the case against using recipient names in generic marketing emails. We’re back from Usability Week 2010 with lots of ideas…


2 Comments »

Top 10 tips RIP?

Stand out from the crowd: don’t pretend you’ve got 10 top tips when you’ve really got 6 (or 13)


1 Comment »

How to work a tone of voice online

A distinctive tone of voice can be difficult to achieve but when it’s done right it can literally win or lose you customers.


No Comments »