So, how do visitors read websites? Short Answer: They skim through pages, hunting for answers by looking at relevant keywords and phrases. Explanation: I'll go into a little bit of detail about why this theory holds true, while providing graphs, charts, and other statsy stuff in this article. Straight and to the point. Let's start by blasting a few common myths with scientific research to prove them wrong. Common Myths : 1. Users will scroll all the way to the bottom: Chartbeat teamed up with Slate Magazine and uncovered the fact that most users did not reach their article beyond 60% of their articles. "Reach", not "Read". The stats for entertainment websites (stumbledupon, distractify, buzzfeed) are higher due to their lighter content, catchy titles, and engaging images. For the rest of us, 60% seems like a horrible number. Neilsen Norman conducted eye-tracking research in '08 and figured out that users only "read" about 20-30% of the article. Here's what they had to say, "On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. We've known since our first studies of how users read on the Web that they typically don't read very much.Scanning text is an extremely common behavior for higher-literacy users; our recent eyetracking studies further validate this finding." Is this a new phenomenon? Nope. In 1997, the NN group found that 80% of users scanned new websites, and only 16% of the users read it word-by-word. 2. Users only share your article if they've read it completely: WRONG! I'll point to Slate again and show you their shares vs article depth graph. An excerpt from their article explains this further. "There’s a very weak relationship between scroll depth and sharing. Both at Slate and across the Web, articles that get a lot of tweets don’t necessarily get read very deeply. Articles that get read deeply aren't necessarily generating a lot of tweets." 3. You need to "build-up" the article to keep users interested: This type of logic stems from how people view movies or read books. Most of the time, people associate themselves with the main-lead of the movie or book and hence enjoy the journey of the story till the end. That's not the case for blog-posts or articles. Something like an inverted pyramid or some other empty buzz-word. When users search for a query and click a link on the SERP, they are usually hunting for a specific answer to their question. They will brutally scan through the article (sub-consciously looking at your design and architecture) and focus only on the relevant paragraphs that satisfy their needs.

1. Web Psychology
How people read websites
Written by @sanchitkhera7

2. 1
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
So, how do visitors read websites?
Short Answer: They skim through pages, hunting for answers by
looking at relevant keywords and phrases.
I’ll go into a little bit of detail about why this theory holds true,
while providing graphs, charts, and other relevant information in
this article - Straight and to the point. Let’s start by visiting a few
common UI myths and prove why they may be wrong. Take a look
at the chart below -
www.fivemv.com

3. 2
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
Common Myths :
1. Users will scroll all the way to the bottom: Chartbeat teamed up
with Slate Magazine and uncovered the fact that most users did
not reach their article beyond 60% of some of their articles.
“Reach”, not "Read”.
The statistics for entertainment websites (stumbledupon,
distractify, buzzfeed) are going to be a bit higher due to their
lighter content, catchy titles, and engaging images. For the rest of
us, 60% is not where we'd hoped to be.
www.fivemv.com

4. 3
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
Common Myths :
2. Users only share your article if they’ve read it completely:
WRONG! I’ll point to Slate again and show you their shares v/s
article depth graph below. An excerpt from their research explains
this further. “There’s a very weak relationship between scroll
depth and sharing. Both at Slate and across the Web, articles that
get a lot of tweets don’t necessarily get read very deeply. Articles
that get read deeply aren’t necessarily generating a lot of tweets.”
3. You need to “build-up” the article to keep users interested:
This type of logic stems from how people watch movies or read
books. When users search for a query and click a link on the
SERP, they are usually hunting for a specific answer to their
question. They will brutally scan through the article (subconsciously looking at your design and architecture) and focus
only on the relevant paragraphs that satisfy their needs.
www.fivemv.com

5. 4
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
Example of a user scanning for relevant keywords on an older
website with poor design. (With eye-tracking technology)
www.fivemv.com

6. 5
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
F-Shaped Pattern
Research suggests that an F-shaped pattern is the most recurring
system of processing a website and/or its contents for an average
visitor.
The guys at Webdesign.Tutsplus have graciously shared their
heatmap, which also suggests a similar F-shaped pattern for
users that check out their site.
What we’re seeing here is a systematic processing of the entire
article/website in a structured but some-what chaotic manner. You
can clearly see the inherent bias prevalent in most of us that
forces us to ignore the rest of the paragraph if the first few
sentences are not appealing to us. Hence the F-shape.
www.fivemv.com

7. 6
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
So what type of design appeals the most to what people?
Well, research suggests that the younger the demographic of the
audience, the more adventurous they are in terms of clicking links
on your page. The following graph comes from NNgroup’s
usability testing experiments.
Tabbed browsing is something that a lot of young adults would be
guilty of. Surprisingly, the level of patience that adults have while
viewing websites is higher compared to teens and younger. This
could be attributed to the development of the Pre-Frontal Cortex
which usually occurs around the age of 25.
www.fivemv.com

8. 7
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
What are the implications? How do I improve my design?
Build a unique and creative website:
How hard could a redesign be? How expensive could it get?
What’s the ROI for a redesign? How often do I need to keep
changing the site? Let me answer all of those questions by saying
this. Do you want to delight your users? If so then keeping up with
current trends is crucial. Techcrunch changed their site design,
following in the footsteps of Fast Company. Why did these sites
change their design? Because they cared about their users, and
the numbers speak for themselves. Here’s 10 tips on building
parallax scrolling on your website by CreativeBloq
Quality V/S Quantity:
Depends on your revenue model. Sites that make money off ads
prefer to send users elsewhere once they view the content. In the
social media marketing industry, sites like SEJ and Search Engine
Watch don’t focus their efforts on constantly writing high quality
articles, and act more like reporters in their respective industries.
Sites like Social Media Examiner and Moz focus on high quality
articles because they generate revenue from being service
providers, hosting events, and providing technology solutions.
Here’s Neil Patel (QuickSprout) on how he increased
Techcrunch’s traffic by 30% in 2 months while focusing on
quantity.
www.fivemv.com

9. 8
HOW PEOPLE VIEW WEBSITES
Writing with precision:
Get straight to the point and provide adequate information from
multiple sources to back your claims. Use images, graphs, charts,
infographics and videos to illustrate your points and convert users
into customers more effectively. Users want to see your business
card first, and then your resume. Give them a little, and they'll
come back for more.
Integrate story-telling in your content:
Don’t let the people decide what your brand is all about. Pick an
engaging story that connects with consumers, and build content
that users can relate to. Steve Jobs did this every time he
launched a new product. He sold a story. A story of making things
better. Let your website content speak about it's unique story.
Take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Solis. Both highly
successful and highly established in the social media space. Both
Gary and Brian constantly obsesses about building stories and
creating content that connects with its audience.
Additional Resources:
1. UXMyths: They’ve listed an extended list of the top 30+ myths
that plague the webdesign industry
2. NN Group: They’re an agency that regularly blogs about UX
research by levering their eye-tracking software
3. BoxesandArrows: They’ve got a good blog as well. Lots of
detailed stuff about UI-UX
4. CreativeBloq: I can’t stop raving about this site! It’s brilliant.
www.fivemv.com