When businesses first expanded into cyberspace, many of their efforts revolved around applying traditional marketing and user interaction principles and strategies to the new frontier. Like brave explorers, they grabbed some innovative online tools and built Web sites that they believed would reflect their corporate objectives and best practices. They designed layouts that borrowed from their brick-and-mortar strategies and physical realities.
As cyber-awareness evolved, however, corporate leaders and their Web management teams slowly realized that the innovative capabilities and technological characteristics of the electronic virtual world prompted online users and customers to behave differently and to develop unique expectations. Many traditional business strategies simply didn’t apply online.
Discovering how to draw and retain site visitors is among the most difficult challenges that online marketers face. The success of an online business hinges largely on the design of its Web site, so all site elements must be appealing, compelling, and most especially, effective. Effectiveness, however, is highly subjective.
The question every online business owner and Web designer must therefore answer is "What do our site users want?"
Words Before Pictures
Almost 20 years ago, the Poynter Institute conducted its first EyeTrack Study of newspaper readers. Results revealed that print readers tend to first look at photos that call out, and then focus on the text to read the related information. The same eyetracking study was conducted more recently by a team from Stanford University and the Poynter Institute, but this time the subjects were readers of online news. The results showed the exact opposite: News readers on the Web zeroed in on the text and paid little attention to the pictures. They go online to read, not to look at graphics.
Bearing this out, John Morkes and Jacob Nielsen, long considered the experts on Web site usability, conducted numerous studies and concluded that "content is king in the user's mind." According to Nielsen, text-based content is crucial to capturing an online user's extra-short attention span and in creating the "optimal user experience."
Internet users want information as quickly as possible, in order to make valued decisions on the spot. So, they skim and they scan and, unless graphics are what they are really after, they click away when the text they are looking for is not instantly available.
Pictures Before Words
The above findings notwithstanding, what actually began to happen in the virtual arena was that many sites resorted to adding bells and whistles, hoping to project an aura of innovation and pizzazz. Graphics, photos, animated images, flash content, and even music all competed with each other for the attention of the casual surfer.
This concept of drawing attention through color and eye candy is a take-off from traditional marketing strategies. Shopping sites create cyber-equivalents of their print catalogs; magazines build online replicas of their glossies; name brands wallpaper their homepages with almost subliminal images of their ubiquitous logos and trademarks. The rationale: if it works on paper, it should work on the screen. And to a certain extent, it does.
Shoppers who have migrated to the online experience are still motivated by trust and professionalism. Promotional fluff, and hard-sell slogans generate poor credibility compared to actual, visual presentations of a desired product. Furthermore, lengthy, uninformative text becomes more of a hindrance to an online user's need to immediately arrive at intelligent buying decisions. In this case, a picture may be worth a thousand words -- and a higher level of credibility.
Balancing Form and Function Today
By now, the initial shakedown in e-commerce has provided e-tailers and e-marketers a track record on which to base sound decisions concerning the strategies they need to employ to achieve success online. Understanding the user is key to capitalizing on this information.
Successful e-commerce sites know who is likely to visit the Web site and what they want. The most successful sites assure visitors, in user-appropriate language, that they can deliver. To achieve the right mix of text and imagery, these sites:
- Define the reading level and potential time investment site visitors are likely to make in reading information.
- Consider the technology with which visitors will be accessing the site.
- Ensure ease of use in navigation and access to information.
- Optimize the quality of information provided on the site.
- Develop levels of text to address the various levels of reader interest.
- Use effective titles, one-sentence summaries, bullets, and captions to help users skim or "absorb" information rapidly.
- Add essential photographs or illustrations to text strategically.
- Facilitate the user's desire to transact business.
An Evolving Content Environment
Online users represent a singular force that drives businesses to continually reconfigure, redefine, and adapt to the cyberscenario. Content strategies are an important factor in success, and they need to evolve as the landscape of the Internet changes. But content strategies have to be closely coupled to the audience they are targeting.
So…Words or Pictures?
Except in specific instances, text appears to win hands down. Beyond that, the question is more complex. It comes down to finding the right words, underscoring them with the right pictures, and providing them both within the right structure.
The interface between the business provider and its users is the door that either lets customers in or keeps them out. The effective use of words and pictures can attract visitors, engage them, and turn them into customers.
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