In defense of readers
The best readers are stubborn readers. They have almost unlimited perseverance, which makes them read no matter what is going on around them. I saw a girl absorbed in reading Don Quixote at a table in a noisy bar; I saw a typical New York reader who walked down the street with a book in hand; In recent days, I have seen many people absorbing books from the screens of their iPhones (one of them admitted that he had read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy by scrolling through the text with his finger). And millions of us read newspapers, magazines, and blogs from screens every day — all this despite statements that no one else reads.
These readers have one ability: they can create a feeling of loneliness for themselves when circumstances allow them to do so. Reading must take place in solitude - like death, reading takes you alone; over the centuries, readers have learned to create this solitude, have learned to be in solitude in places adapted for this least. An experienced reader can forget about a good book even when something like a war is happening around (and sometimes during a war): it's almost the same as growing orchids in the desert.
Despite the fact that on the Internet you can find enough "Fiction", readers remain a forgotten audience. Most of what we are talking about web design revolves around the idea of moving around the page: people are thought of as those who are looking for, reviewing, scrolling, looking through. We measure the frequency of their clicks, but not the time they spent on our page. We worry about their movement and participation - about how they move from one page to another, with whom they speak when they arrive there - but we forget about those who are looking for peace of mind. Reading thrives where there is space - that is, a little far from the hum of the crowd, and for us, web designers, there is still a lot of work to do to clear this space.
')
Imagine that you are holding a book for the first time. You look at the cover to see what it is about, then maybe turn it over to read the text printed on the cover at the back. Having opened the book, you can glance at the title page or quickly run through the table of contents. Maybe you decide to look at the end of the book to check the number of pages, or just weigh the book in your hand and take it easy. If the book has a dust jacket, you can remove it so that it does not interfere at hand.
Most readers must perform one or more of these actions: they are a kind of ritual before reading, part of the book culture. They perform an important task, facilitating the transition from viewing to reading. They help the reader to feel an interest in the book and are an invitation to read, arranging the scene before the action following them. Similar actions are on the Internet. When you get to the page with the article (this one, for example), you can look at the logo to see where you are, or view the menu of the site to find out for yourself what else can be found here. Surely you can write on the title of the article, or on the photograph or illustration that accompanies it. If there is an excerpt or a summary on the page, you can run over it as you would go over a brief description of the book on the back cover. You may even read the first paragraph to see how close and interesting this article is for you. If during any of these actions you conclude that the article is not for you, you leave the page and go somewhere else. But if she is interested in you, you will probably start reading.
All this can last only a few seconds, but these seconds are the only preparation for the reader, the only way that allows you to move from looking to reading, from viewing the text to concentrating on it. It is during these few seconds that the reader decides to concentrate his attention on the text and start reading is no less fascinating action than browsing, from which the name of your favorite browser program comes.
Many stubborn readers will be able to go into the reading state, regardless of whether it is convenient or not convenient for them to do it on the page you have laid out; but as designers, we can help start reading for everyone else. Look at what design elements accompany the page, and place at the very top those added to the page to attract visitors. A summary or excerpt, as well as illustrations, allows the reader to quickly determine what the article is about. The list of categories and links to information on a similar topic form the context for the article. The name of the author and his brief description help to feel the personality behind the text. All these elements are connected to open the path to reading.
Surely the first paragraph (or the first few paragraphs - depending on the size of the text) will not be read like the following. We often read more slowly at the beginning of the text, getting used to the author's manner and deciding whether we want or don’t want to continue. Some typography techniques, such as an initial letter or setting a larger paragraph or a different type of font for the first paragraph, may give the first paragraph a different meaning than the subsequent ones and make the transition to reading more convenient. Figuratively speaking, the first paragraph should sound louder than the following to attract the reader.
As soon as the reader creates an aura of solitude around himself, he becomes almost unattainable. A reader who is very passionate about his work may not hear you if you call him by name. Call him again and he will raise his head, giving you an irritated look. The main thing is not to stop all the fuss that prevails around the reader, but to give him enough space (remember the girl who read Quixote at the bar? You will certainly try to order yourself a drink without interfering with it).
In practice, this means that you need to remove everything that distracts, leaving only the most necessary. Excerpts and quotations, which were so useful at the beginning of the article, later become just a hindrance: many feel that they unconsciously attract attention even when they want to concentrate on the text. Attention to the simplest details of typography — line length, easy-to-read font, the right balance between font size and line spacing, a suitable contrast between text color and background — can be a decisive choice in favor of the reader who comes to the end of the article, and not to the reader who gets tired and gives up.
The free space to the right and left of the text is not so much a luxury as a necessity. Each pixel of free space around the text can help the reader focus on the text instead of being distracted. The reader's eyes should periodically reach the edge of the block with text: the sidebar of the site, located too close to the text or painted in a lighter or darker color, will get in the way of the reader every time. Even slightly increased indentation between the text and the sidebar (especially if there is more text on the sidebar) can make the page more convenient and return the reader a sense of privacy.
It is important to consider how the reading process is built. After the initial transition from looking to reading, there is a period of deep concentration, during which the reader is literally forgotten with text. At the end, however, the reader emerges again from the abyss of information and is ready to return to looking at, which led him to this place. The design of the page should take into account these three separate phases: first meet the reader, then leave him alone and at the end give him the opportunity to continue to search for what interests him.
Many sites scatter related content around an article, instead of collecting it at the top or bottom, which would be more useful and would not distract from the article itself. If you want your visitors to look through the page, then by any means pull out the side panel to its full height and fill it with what head it will take, so that not a single pixel next to the article is empty. But if you want them to read - if the article was written, and not just arranged or copied, if the text consists of carefully composed prose, and not scraps of articles, lists, points and reminders, then respect reading as a process and remove the extra information somewhere else. The middle of the article should be as lonely as the reader, fascinated by his work, and achieve this with a design that does not stand in the way of either the text or the reader.
Of course, there are readers who avoid meeting with the screen - those who print long articles or - oh, horror! - buy printed books and magazines instead. We often attribute the reason for their attachment to those features over which we have no control: the fact that it is physically inconvenient to sit at your desk (compared to a book with which you can comfortably sit down anywhere), the inaccessibility for the average user of the screen more convenient paper, the habit of losing attention, developed during web surfing, because of which the transition to reading looks impossible. But in fact, there are other features that play a role, and we are able to achieve a lot if we take them under our control; ask yourself whether the design of your page is adapted to the process of reading or, on the contrary, it rudely stifles any attempts to start it, assigning the main role to viewing, viewing and viewing.
The only way for a designer to check if a page is suitable for reading is to read it yourself. Turning to the meaning of design, this means that you need to look at the text itself and find enough time to actually read it. This is not an easy task, but it is also not easy to read online — trying to read on the web will help you understand the state of the reader who is among the banners, advertisements and web pages. The Internet is still a noisy and crowded place, but it is also infinity, and for sure we can find enough space on the Internet to read, the space in which the text speaks, and the reader listens to it without tension.
==========
Original article: "In defense of readers", by Mandy Brown
Apart Magazine and the author [s].
From the translator:
Hi, Habrahabr!
Thank you for reading this article.
This is the first translation, which he decided to put on public display. I apologize for his liberty.
If you find a word or paragraph in it that cuts the eye or is formatted differently than is customary, please comment.
Thank you in advance.
These readers have one ability: they can create a feeling of loneliness for themselves when circumstances allow them to do so. Reading must take place in solitude - like death, reading takes you alone; over the centuries, readers have learned to create this solitude, have learned to be in solitude in places adapted for this least. An experienced reader can forget about a good book even when something like a war is happening around (and sometimes during a war): it's almost the same as growing orchids in the desert.
Despite the fact that on the Internet you can find enough "Fiction", readers remain a forgotten audience. Most of what we are talking about web design revolves around the idea of moving around the page: people are thought of as those who are looking for, reviewing, scrolling, looking through. We measure the frequency of their clicks, but not the time they spent on our page. We worry about their movement and participation - about how they move from one page to another, with whom they speak when they arrive there - but we forget about those who are looking for peace of mind. Reading thrives where there is space - that is, a little far from the hum of the crowd, and for us, web designers, there is still a lot of work to do to clear this space.
')
From looking to reading
It is almost impossible to watch and read at the same time: these are different activities.
- Gerard Unger, While You're Reading
Imagine that you are holding a book for the first time. You look at the cover to see what it is about, then maybe turn it over to read the text printed on the cover at the back. Having opened the book, you can glance at the title page or quickly run through the table of contents. Maybe you decide to look at the end of the book to check the number of pages, or just weigh the book in your hand and take it easy. If the book has a dust jacket, you can remove it so that it does not interfere at hand.
Most readers must perform one or more of these actions: they are a kind of ritual before reading, part of the book culture. They perform an important task, facilitating the transition from viewing to reading. They help the reader to feel an interest in the book and are an invitation to read, arranging the scene before the action following them. Similar actions are on the Internet. When you get to the page with the article (this one, for example), you can look at the logo to see where you are, or view the menu of the site to find out for yourself what else can be found here. Surely you can write on the title of the article, or on the photograph or illustration that accompanies it. If there is an excerpt or a summary on the page, you can run over it as you would go over a brief description of the book on the back cover. You may even read the first paragraph to see how close and interesting this article is for you. If during any of these actions you conclude that the article is not for you, you leave the page and go somewhere else. But if she is interested in you, you will probably start reading.
All this can last only a few seconds, but these seconds are the only preparation for the reader, the only way that allows you to move from looking to reading, from viewing the text to concentrating on it. It is during these few seconds that the reader decides to concentrate his attention on the text and start reading is no less fascinating action than browsing, from which the name of your favorite browser program comes.
Many stubborn readers will be able to go into the reading state, regardless of whether it is convenient or not convenient for them to do it on the page you have laid out; but as designers, we can help start reading for everyone else. Look at what design elements accompany the page, and place at the very top those added to the page to attract visitors. A summary or excerpt, as well as illustrations, allows the reader to quickly determine what the article is about. The list of categories and links to information on a similar topic form the context for the article. The name of the author and his brief description help to feel the personality behind the text. All these elements are connected to open the path to reading.
Surely the first paragraph (or the first few paragraphs - depending on the size of the text) will not be read like the following. We often read more slowly at the beginning of the text, getting used to the author's manner and deciding whether we want or don’t want to continue. Some typography techniques, such as an initial letter or setting a larger paragraph or a different type of font for the first paragraph, may give the first paragraph a different meaning than the subsequent ones and make the transition to reading more convenient. Figuratively speaking, the first paragraph should sound louder than the following to attract the reader.
Now leave me alone
As soon as the reader creates an aura of solitude around himself, he becomes almost unattainable. A reader who is very passionate about his work may not hear you if you call him by name. Call him again and he will raise his head, giving you an irritated look. The main thing is not to stop all the fuss that prevails around the reader, but to give him enough space (remember the girl who read Quixote at the bar? You will certainly try to order yourself a drink without interfering with it).
In practice, this means that you need to remove everything that distracts, leaving only the most necessary. Excerpts and quotations, which were so useful at the beginning of the article, later become just a hindrance: many feel that they unconsciously attract attention even when they want to concentrate on the text. Attention to the simplest details of typography — line length, easy-to-read font, the right balance between font size and line spacing, a suitable contrast between text color and background — can be a decisive choice in favor of the reader who comes to the end of the article, and not to the reader who gets tired and gives up.
The free space to the right and left of the text is not so much a luxury as a necessity. Each pixel of free space around the text can help the reader focus on the text instead of being distracted. The reader's eyes should periodically reach the edge of the block with text: the sidebar of the site, located too close to the text or painted in a lighter or darker color, will get in the way of the reader every time. Even slightly increased indentation between the text and the sidebar (especially if there is more text on the sidebar) can make the page more convenient and return the reader a sense of privacy.
It is important to consider how the reading process is built. After the initial transition from looking to reading, there is a period of deep concentration, during which the reader is literally forgotten with text. At the end, however, the reader emerges again from the abyss of information and is ready to return to looking at, which led him to this place. The design of the page should take into account these three separate phases: first meet the reader, then leave him alone and at the end give him the opportunity to continue to search for what interests him.
Many sites scatter related content around an article, instead of collecting it at the top or bottom, which would be more useful and would not distract from the article itself. If you want your visitors to look through the page, then by any means pull out the side panel to its full height and fill it with what head it will take, so that not a single pixel next to the article is empty. But if you want them to read - if the article was written, and not just arranged or copied, if the text consists of carefully composed prose, and not scraps of articles, lists, points and reminders, then respect reading as a process and remove the extra information somewhere else. The middle of the article should be as lonely as the reader, fascinated by his work, and achieve this with a design that does not stand in the way of either the text or the reader.
Designers can be readers too.
Of course, there are readers who avoid meeting with the screen - those who print long articles or - oh, horror! - buy printed books and magazines instead. We often attribute the reason for their attachment to those features over which we have no control: the fact that it is physically inconvenient to sit at your desk (compared to a book with which you can comfortably sit down anywhere), the inaccessibility for the average user of the screen more convenient paper, the habit of losing attention, developed during web surfing, because of which the transition to reading looks impossible. But in fact, there are other features that play a role, and we are able to achieve a lot if we take them under our control; ask yourself whether the design of your page is adapted to the process of reading or, on the contrary, it rudely stifles any attempts to start it, assigning the main role to viewing, viewing and viewing.
The only way for a designer to check if a page is suitable for reading is to read it yourself. Turning to the meaning of design, this means that you need to look at the text itself and find enough time to actually read it. This is not an easy task, but it is also not easy to read online — trying to read on the web will help you understand the state of the reader who is among the banners, advertisements and web pages. The Internet is still a noisy and crowded place, but it is also infinity, and for sure we can find enough space on the Internet to read, the space in which the text speaks, and the reader listens to it without tension.
==========
Original article: "In defense of readers", by Mandy Brown
Apart Magazine and the author [s].
From the translator:
Hi, Habrahabr!
Thank you for reading this article.
This is the first translation, which he decided to put on public display. I apologize for his liberty.
If you find a word or paragraph in it that cuts the eye or is formatted differently than is customary, please comment.
Thank you in advance.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/82240/
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