Websites communicate information to users in a unique way that requires website designers to understand electronic communication models in order to relay effective messages. The primary importance of visiting websites is for users to receive answers in the shortest amount of time. When visiting websites, people are usually in a hurry, “much of our web use is motivated by the desire to save time” (Krug 22). People visit sites seeking fast answers to problems and questions. In an attempt to save as much time as possible, users do not read, they scan, and therefore websites need to be created with key words, search queries, and tabs. In verbal communication models, noise is a prominent factor, in electronic communication through websites, visual noise plays a large factor as well. Removing words, pictures, boxes, and backgrounds can reduce the noise level on a page and make the useful content more prominent (Krug 38).
If one were to draw a model of for website communication and interaction, the arrows sending the message would only face one direction; websites therefore are most effective when they answer all of the users questions in a short and concise answer. In “Don’t Make Me Think” Steven Krug uses the example of going to purchase a chainsaw. When you walk into a store, you look for signs and categories and if you first choose the wrong aisle, you can walk down another or ask someone for help. When navigating a website for the same item you “you make your way through a hierarchy using signs to guide you” (Krug 55).
The user can typically search in a query or click through the homepage using tabs and subsections. On a website however, if the user is unable to find what they are seeking, they typically give up out of frustration or conclude that the site cannot provide them with what they are seeking. If this happens, the website fails to send an effective message and communication between the user and the site is terminated before the message is sent.
Websites have to accommodate multiple audiences, people who identify with thousands of different discourse communities and must constantly take into consideration the most recent rhetorical situations. In “Letting Go of the Words,” Janice Redish reminds website designers that “one of the most important parts of gathering information from your audiences is understanding the words they use to describe what they want to need” (Redish 19).
The most effective ways to send the desired message through a website is to:
- Give people only what they need, and omit all unnecessary information.
- Start with a key point.
- Write in the inverted pyramid style.
- Chunk information to increase readability.
- Layer information for different audiences and rhetorical situations.
Different from written documents that aim to answer the same questions and provides the same information as websites; websites are not bound by physical space. Therefore the same information written with a variety of text-based strategies to target a variety of discourse communities can be distributed across many different pages and tabs.
Sources:
- Krug, Steve. Don’t Make Me Think!: a Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. Berkeley, Calif: New Riders Pub., 2006. Print.
- Redish, Janice C. Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works. San Francisco [etc.]: Elsevier/Kaufmann, 2007. Print.