Usability is crucial for any website that wants to provide a great experience. Usability is not only about how the website is designed or the design elements it uses but also about the content within it. Written content can improve or destroy user experience depending on several factors. Improving these factors will help your written content provides the best user experience.

Break Up Your Content

Technically, you could write one long block of text, put it on a website and say it is done. However, this will provide an awful user experience because it will tire the user and will not help them digest one point before they have to move on to the next.

Breaking up your content involves using shorter paragraphs, adding headings, and ensuring your sentences are not too long. Doing this makes your content more scannable which can lead to people spending more time on your website as the content is easy to read and easy on the eyes.

Get to the Point

This is very important, especially in an age where people have become very impatient and there are numerous sources of the same information. As a writer, ensure your points are clear and you are taking the shortest route from one point to the next.

Writing concisely is also about reducing fluff. Fluff is content whose removal would not change the meaning of a piece of text or people’s ability to understand it. It is sometimes added to pad out word counts on written content, but it is a bad practice because it leads to a terrible user experience.

Be Clear and Helpful

Being clear and helpful is a function of reducing fluff as much as possible. Avoid being wordy and tell the reader just what they need to know. This makes your writing clearer and more valuable.

When writing, always ask yourself what your reader needs to know and what would be helpful to them. Apart from some necessary filler content, you should remove everything else that does not serve this purpose.

Use a Consistent Tense and Point of View

Tense refers to the time an action is taking place, and point of view helps differentiate between the person providing the information and the one receiving it. Swapping tense and points of view in written content is confusing and leads to a bad user experience. It makes your content harder for the reader to follow.

There are some exceptions though because you might talk about the benefits a product has in one paragraph, you will get more viewers, for example, and then talk about your company in the next (we are a marketing company). In such cases you would swap the point of view, but you have to be wary of these exceptions.

Remove Uncertainty

This refers to written content, links, and calls to action. Readers should always know what is expected of them at all times. Perhaps you want them to keep reading, click on a link, or click your call to action to join your newsletter. Be as explicit as possible to avoid confusion.

Conclusion

How you write and how written content is presented can significantly affect the user experience. Aim to write concisely, ensuring your content is helpful and valuable to the reader. Also, remove all doubt by being as concise and explicit as possible.

UX design agency