Comments on the long page

While the information in the long page might be correct and informative, it is less useful than it could be because it is presented as a mass of undifferentiated text.

Most readers have difficulty reading large amounts of text onscreen. Research shows that many do not look beyond the first page. To better support most readers, it would be best to segment the page. However, if the designer chooses to keep all the information on a single page, it is still possible to make the page significantly more readable.

• Use hierarchical section titles to provide a structure to the page. These section titles also help the author consider the design and purpose of the individual paragraphs.
• Use these hierarchical section titles to build a table of contents.
• Add a a short introduction or abstract so that the reader can determine if it's worthwhile to read the page.
• Write less, if possible. In the March 15, 1997 column of Alertbox, Jakob Nielsen suggests writing 50% less than you would for a printed document.

The second version of this page makes some of these changes to the page.

This page created Sun Jun 15 08:20:23 1997 by SamR's Site Suite.