Text Ergonomics: A user of social networks sees about 54,000 words per day

How to understand the quality we write?

How many words do you see per day? Believe it or not, research has shown that a typical user of social networks sees about 54,000 words a day .

Damn, these are more words than you can find in a book! For example, Fight Club, one of my favorite novels, contains only 49,962 words.
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With so many words fighting for attention, good writing skills are more important than ever. Anyone can create crappy content. To stand out from the crowd, you need to create first-class content.

But how can you tell if you are good at writing? This is where testing comes into play. It helps you see how your words resonate with readers before you press this scary publish button.

Let's take a look at 5 cool ways to check the content of your article. Using these tests, you can gain valuable knowledge about your writing skills and have fun in the process.

Reaction cards

Back in 2002, several people from Microsoft created a testing method known as the Microsoft Response Card Method (Microsoft Reaction Card Method ). This is a way to measure the demand for a product using a set of 118 reaction cards.

Each reaction card contains one concept, such as Irritant, Original, Useful. Having reviewed the design, each test participant is invited to choose the cards that he considers most relevant. They are then asked to explain their choices.



Reaction Cards

Initially, this method was used to test the design, but it can also be used to test words in an email, a website, or even a post on Medium.

With this method, you will get better feedback, rather than if you ask “Do you like it?”. He captures the emotional response of people using controlled vocabulary. By limiting the words that people can choose, it becomes easier to compare and combine the results.

If you decide that 118 cards are too many, use fewer. The Nielsen Norman Group recommends using 25 words or less.

And you are not required to use the same words that Microsoft used. If you have specific brand or goal attributes on your mind, try to start by using these words. If you are very brave, you can even use emoji instead of words.

Text selection

Do you use the selection feature in Medium? Many people use highlighters to mark passages they love. Obviously, some words are better than others, and highlighting the text allows you to understand which passages people like the most.
Selection can be used to check the content. Just print your content on paper and give your participants two different separators. Then ask them to highlight in one color those passages that they liked, and others those that they did not like.

In the end, we can get something like this:



Color coded material

Then ask the participant why they have highlighted certain words. The great thing about this method is that it gives you feedback regarding the specific words you use. If you used words that caused a negative reaction in people, then you will immediately see them highlighted in some color. If people like certain words, you will see it too.

In addition, the selection of text in different colors is much more fun than pressing various buttons on the computer screen.

Stickers

Gosh, I love stickers. These are just small pieces of sticky paper, but I swear they have magical powers! Take any old document, attach to it any stupid sticker and BAM! This document now exudes fun.

Stickers are so magical that they can be used to check content. Remember the text selection method described above? The method of stickers is a lot like it, only you use stickers instead of highlighters.

Markers are cool, but you are limited in the number of colors you can use. If you use more than 2 or 3 colors, it can be hard to remember what each color means. (Wait, come on again, what does yellow mean?)

Stickers, on the other hand, carry more meaning. You can use asterisks, faces, phrases, emoji - everything your heart desires.

After you print out your content, ask test participants to glue the appropriate stickers next to the words they read. For example, you can use the following stickers:

• = This passage makes no sense
• = This passage was informative.
• = This passage was scary
• = Oh, this passage was so terrible that my heart aches

Then ask them to explain why they put such stickers on them. In the end, you will get a ton of useful feedback in the form of funny, colorful stickers.

Explain it to a friend.

Friends are often the best people who can explain something to us. They understand that it is in their best interest to tell us how it is. Plus, our friends, as a rule, also speak like us, without fashionable jargon or gibberish.

To test a friend, ask the participant to read one small piece of material at a time, as a paragraph of the web article. Then ask them the magic question:

“How would you explain this to your friend?”

In fact, you ask them to repeat what they just read, but in their own words. Now listen carefully to what they say.

If they explain the topic using the same words that you wrote, most likely your words are deposited in their head — and that is good. Your promise worked!

If they can't remember what they have just read, then your content is lame. Well, maybe not, but he was probably not memorable or worthy of special attention.

In the Made to Stick book, Chip and Dan Heath say that an idea must have these 6 characteristics in order to be memorable:

• Simple: is the point clear?
• Unexpected: Is it gaining people's attention?
• Specific: is it specific enough to be remembered later?
• Reliable: can you believe her?
• Emotional: Does it cause people to feel anxious?
• Substantial: Does it encourage people to act?

If your readers cannot explain what they have just read, then you probably are missing one of the above points. Try to focus on each of these areas until your words reach your audience.

Choose the best version

Often I notice that I am rewriting the same material over and over again. For example, I have rewritten this paragraph five times already! I am indecisive, and sometimes I just cannot understand in which direction I should work better.



The question I ask myself every day

What if there was a way to test two or three versions and let readers choose their favorite version? That is the essence of this method.

To perform this check, print different versions of your content. Then show the participant each version, one at a time, and find out what they think about each of them. Finally, let them choose the version they like the most.

Try not to show too much content at once. Each version should be 150 words or less, approximately the size of two or three paragraphs. In addition, different versions should be as different as possible so that participants can clearly see what is different.

As soon as the participant chooses the version that he likes most, ask him why he chose it. I hope you identify the main features of this version that will help you understand how to write the rest of your content.

The method is similar to testing type A / B, but on a much smaller scale. However, unlike A / B testing, this method helps to understand why someone prefers one version to another. In addition, he helps you in the process of writing. A / B type testing usually occurs when the material is already written.

Checkout time

Now that you’ve already seen several different ways of testing content, I hope this will inspire you to launch your own audits in the future.

What is good about these tests is that they are light and do not require too much preparatory work. Some may even say that these checks are fun. Participants have to play with cards, highlighters and stickers, while writers collect valuable feedback. All come out victorious.

When you are ready to find participants for your tests, try to find people who will become your potential readers and aim for 5-7 participants. If you get mixed results, you can always carry out another phase of checks later.

And if you want to learn more about checking content, here are some similar articles that will set you in the mood:

• Content Verification - Angela Colter
• Simple method for assessing content - Pit Gale
• When should I start testing content? - Sarah Zasquez Walsh
• Practical tips for testing content on sites - Hoa Lorenzher

Do you have other ways to test content? If yes, then I would like to hear about it. Feel free to share below your own ideas, success stories, or horror stories. We all have what we can learn from each other.

Today you can see more than 50,000 words. I hope these 1,500 words were worth your time.