Clear & consistent web content is critical for universities where student acquisition and retention are big drivers. Poor content reflects badly on your institution, and puts a cognitive burden on students trying to complete tasks online. It can even lead to lost business. For example; prospective international students conducting online research may churn to another college based on complex content on your ‘student admission’ pages. Content that is often overly legalese and lifted from hard copy brochures. When you have thousands of pages, spread across multiple domains, measuring this complex stuff is really hard. We presented this deck as part of the TerminalFour’s user conference in Boston & Dublin, Nov 2013. If you’re on a university marketing team and need to identify & fix poor content that impacts site experience, you’ll find this useful. We show an example case study from the University of the Arts London. They identified complex content on highly trafficked parts of the site using VisibleThread Clarity Grader. They also used ‘dictionary scans’ to pick up outdated & inconsistent brand references in the web copy. Something that normally would take days to do.

1. Web Governance & Audit Tool
Web Content
Readability & Consistency –
Measuring

2. measures:
Clarity &
Consistency

3. Let’s consider clarity

4. „Clear writing‟ seeks to simplify written language; the result is clear
and unambiguous communication.
From: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/before_after/index.cfm
“When the process of freeing a vehicle that has
been stuck results in ruts or holes, the operator will
fill the rut or hole created by such activity before
removing the vehicle from the immediate area.”
OR
“If you make a hole while freeing a stuck
vehicle, you must fill the hole before you drive
away.”
Plain Writing Act of 2010 (Obama signed on Oct 2010), E.O. 12866 & E.O. 12988
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/plLaw/index.cfm
Copyright Visible Thread 2011 – Confidential and Proprietary

5. How do you measure unclear content?
Clarity Measures for 9 Australian Universities
Takeaway: Very Complex content on multiple pages.
Level of long & run-on sentences very high. Passive Voice
very high. Audience will not read or engage.

6. A quick example

7. Nice
Graphic
Design

8. …but the text
is a little less
nice!
The learner registration process will not be
deemed to be complete until the appropriate fees
have been paid to the Awarding Body.
VS.
To register as a learner, you must pay
appropriate fees to the awarding body

9. Why measure clarity?
 People don’t read on the Web: they scan
− Anything that makes the text more difficult to scan impedes
communication.
 People use the Web to find specific information and complete
tasks
− People use the web differently than print materials. If visitors can‟t
find the information they are looking for, they quickly go elsewhere.
− Complex language puts a greater cognitive burden on your visitors.
 Approachable web language builds trust
− If your competitor has web copy that makes them look approachable,
then you will look stuffy in comparison.

10. What about consistency?

11. An example challenge

12. Is the UAL brand consistent in content?

13. We created a simple dictionary

14. Scan results across different sections of the site
The inconsistent terms
Takeaway: Inconsistent brand name
used. Impacts student search

15. Actual content
With the aim of attracting a rich variety of contributions
from a broad selection of people - from academia, media
and practice - and utilise contributions for uploading to a
newly established international repository for fashion to
be housed at the London College of Fashion, University of
Arts of the London.

16. Why care about language consistency?
 Key content likely not findable and searchable
 Your audience may be confused and may not
engage due to a mix of terminology
 Your SEO keyword strategy may be diluted
 Your content may not align with Brand/Corporate
Standards especially for course names and
approved/disapproved terms.

17. Applying Clarity Grader to your
web content review process.

18. Applying Clarity Grader to your Content Review Process
Web governance & managing content quality
As a Content Manager, do you…
• Produce „000s of web pages?
• Using manual processes?
• With many authors?
• On tight deadlines?
Clarity Grader can automatically scan
all web pages to identify content that…
• Scores poorly for clarity & web readability .
• Fails brand standards.
• Uses inconsistent or confusing terminology.
• Has badly implemented SEO.

19. Using Clarity Grader in your content process
Content
Planning
1.
Content
Creation
Evaluate editorial
quality of online
content for:
2.
Identify key
targets for
improvement.
i. Readability &
clarity of language.
3.
Pinpoint the right
corrective actions
for each web page.
ii. Legal & regulatory
requirements
Content
Review
4.
Assess the quality
of content
submitted:
i. Readability &
clarity of language.
ii. Legal & regulatory
requirements
iii.Adherence to
brand standards.
iii.Adherence to
corporate standard.
iv.Consistency of
terminology.
iv.Consistency of
terminology.
v. SEO & Findability.
v. SEO & Findability.
Post-live
Assessment
5.
Evaluate the ROI on
updated content
by:
i. Comparing with
other metrics of
web performance.
ii. Assessing the
quality of work vs.
cost of contactors.
6. Plan a new cycle of
content
improvement.

20. Clarity Grader is used in these scenarios…
As part of a new content project.
Use Clarity Grader to review submitted content to
ensure it meets minimum standards.
During a PR crisis.
Use Clarity Grader to scan all web
communications to ensure nothing unintended is
said.
To comply with regulations.
Use „Good‟ and „Bad‟ language dictionaries in
Clarity Grader to make sure your content is
consistent.
During on-going web content review.
Add Clarity Grader to your dashboard & remain
confident in the quality of on-going operations.

21. Customers - what people say?
“VisibleThread can detect a large number of issues, aiding in defect detection, as well as driving consistency and
compliance around loose language.”
Tom Murphy, Research Director, Gartner.
VisibleThread Named “Cool Vendor” by Leading Analyst Firm - Content Analysis Software Identifies
Defects, Risky Language, and Makes Reviewing Documents 45 Percent more Efficient
“The Tool Rocks! It means we‟re able to conduct web quality audits much quicker than before. Readability is
something that all our clients really care about so we‟re now using the Clarity Grader reports for all major brand
engagements.”
Murray Cox, Director of Content Strategy, LBi (Publicis).
“The benefits associated with VisibleThread are twofold: increased efficiency as a result of automation of the
content review-and-inspection process, and prevention of problems downstream in the project lifecycle.”
Michael Azoff, Principal Analyst, Ovum.
“When consumers visit websites to complete complex tasks, complex language is a major barrier. Clarity Grader
provides a great toolset to improve the clarity and usability of websites.”
Terry Golesworthy, President, The Customer Respect Group
“VisibleThread is providing a good product and category for organizations that need to improve process quality,
especially for organizations that have to work around compliance guidelines. That‟s the sweet spot.”
Theresa Lanowitz, Principal Voke

22. Worried about Clarity or Inconsistency
on your site?
Let us show you
Clarity Grader is
powered by:
with a 30 minute demo

23. Extras/optional

24. Validating Top Tasks for Website Content – University Example
Specific Pages scanned on site –
e.g. undergraduate, admissions etc.
Takeaway:
library
catalogue not
mentioned
anywhere in
content.
Impacts user
who wants to
complete task
The Top Tasks to check

25. Does your content reflect what ‘customers’ search for?
This is the list of
nouns with frequency
Each column is a university website 500 page scan with
noun occurrences
Takeaway: Student missing entirely in 1 site. Campus
missing in 2 sites, information missing in 1.
Prospective student will not find the information they need.

26. Our back story
•
Clarity Grader was created by the people behind VisibleThread.
•
Our original motivation was 20 years of pain reviewing large
documents. You know the thing, 150 page MS Word or PDF docs.
•
So we created a way to scan document content for ‘clarity’. This
cut out a lot of manual legwork. This was VisibleThread for Docs.
•
We created Clarity Grader (aka VisibleThread for Web) with the
same goal in mind, but this time for content analysis of websites.
•
We wanted to pin point the weakest content really quickly.
Complex and inconsistent language damages your online
message and kills brand trust for your customers.
•
But, who has time to trawl through a gazillion pages on sites and
micro sites?

27. Average words per sentence: 10.5
Hard Words: 2.9%
FOG Index (readability): 5.5
VS
Average words per sentence: 21.6
Hard Words: 5.11%
FOG Index (readability): 10.7
Copyright Visible Thread 2011 – Confidential and Proprietary

28. How does it work?
Scan Multiple Websites across entire site/or microsites
•
Clarity Grader analyzes websites for clarity and consistency. We provide detailed reports
highlighting wordy, complex and risky language, eliminating hours of manual effort.
•
Transparency metrics include; readability, passive language density and long sentence density.
These are some of the critical measures satisfying clear writing mandates.
Benchmark your site against your competition
•
Instantly compare peer websites side by side for readability, passive language and related metrics.
You simply point at a website URL.
•
Comparisons allow you benchmark content against ‘best practice’. Reviewers get immediate
visibility into the highest risk content in minutes. Clear actionable guidance is provided to rectify
deficiencies.
Red-flag Website Text by page
•
Flag exact text by page. Display long sentences, passive language, hidden verbs etc. Long sentences
reduce clarity. Splitting them flushes out ambiguity and enhances clarity.
•
When faced with long and confusing website text, citizens and consumers will pick up the phone.
This is costly to the business or government agency in terms of contact center resources.