Intro Text: Cut the “Blah Blah Blah”

In Jakob Nielsen’s AlertBox this week he talks about intro text. Specifically, “blah blah blah” intro text. You’ve probably seen it. That paragraph that rambles on about nothing. This happens all the time on web pages and it’s a particular indication of the lack of attention to good copy on the web. As Nielsen points out, users usually skip over this text and search for actionable items like bulleted lists, graphics, and links.

Why the Filler Text

Part of the reason why this happens is because we tend to think about design and architecture before content. Often designers will work with clients to define what pages are needed, then add the content later. A typical conversation might go like this:

Designer: We need some content for this page.
Client: Oh, well can’t we just write something to put there?
Designer: What should it say?
Client: I don’t know, just make something up.

So someone writes a bunch of filler without thinking about why people are visiting this page and what they want from it. This is a particular problem on University websites, I’ve found. This page used to consist of only the first line under the graphic. Why? Because the content editor didn’t think about what the purpose of that page was. It was an intermediary page leading to more detailed information. The first thought might have been that it’s just a filler page, it doesn’t need to have any content. I developed some content that provides an introduction to the rest of that section. In my new job I’ll be responsible for this page (and others like it!).

Of course, there’s also the SEO component — sometimes you’ll see filler text that is clearly there to provide keywords for search engines and not something that’s useful for human visitors.

How to Fix your Copy

This goes back to what I said about designers needing to develop some writing skills. Things like this happen because in most design projects there isn’t a dedicated copywriter.

As Nielsen says:

So, prune your initial draft of marketese and focus on answering two questions:

• What? (What will users find on this page — i.e., what’s its function?)
• Why? (Why should they care — i.e., what’s in it for them?)

I’d also like to go back to the 4 key home page usability questions raised by Steve Krug in Don’t Make Me Think!. Users need to know:

• What is this?
• What do they have here?
• What can I do here?
• Why should I be here — and not somewhere else?”

Your intro text should help them to answer those questions. Then, think about how you can help them in reaching their destination (the information they are looking for). Check your stats to find out which pages are most visited by users. Use an analytics program to find out what the most common navigation paths are. If you know that users are going to need certain information, provide it for them immediately rather than expecting them to find the links to it. If you’re trying to sell something, use this area to persuade.

There are many options for otherwise empty, filler pages. Think about what users need and what the goal of the page should be. If the page doesn’t have a goal, then maybe there’s a way to eliminate it.

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