Break up a long page into multiple pages, or make users scroll?
Lately I've been thinking about different usability issues on websites, and how to balance the users' preferences with your business model. Specifically today I'm thinking about situations where you have a large amount of content that belongs together. Should you put it on one page and make users scroll down to read it, or is it better to break that content into multiple pages?
This usability tip I received the other day in an email is what triggered my thoughts:
This usability tip I received the other day in an email is what triggered my thoughts:
Usability studies have shown that internet users far prefer to click to another page than scroll to see content. As long as we provide content that gives users a reason to click, they’ll be happy to do so.
I've seen research that goes both ways on this topic. Here usability guru Jakob Nielsen says only 42% of users will scroll on a content page. And there's been plenty of research done on this behavior, including ClickTale's study and Razorfish's examination. And of course the closely related question of "is there such a thing as a 'fold' on a web page, and if so, how can you get users to scroll below the fold?"
But I think the question is more complicated. How should you balance usability with your site's main priorities? This is a big question for publishers especially, or anyone whose site depends on advertising. For example, CNNMoney.com does a lot of slideshow-type content, especially with feature such as 9 top tech flops and 6 terrific towns on the water. It calls these "galleries", and you'll see the presentation of this content is consistent. They have a short write-up about each one, usually accompanied by pictures, and prominent navigation along the edges (with red Next and Back buttons, and a "1 of 6" indication to let you know where you are in the list). At the bottom of the content, you'll also see a thumbnail navigation element, where you can quickly jump to the one you want to read.
It's in CNNMoney.com's best interests to display its content this way, rather than putting all 9 tech flops in a long list on a single page, simply because it benefits their advertising business. When you click the Next button to go from #1 in the list to #2, that generates a second page view -- and more ad impressions. Since most sites sell display advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, more impressions can equal more money. But sites need to adopt this strategy in moderation, because forcing users to click too much can be annoying. Plus this strategy can often decrease click-through rates on the ads that appear on each page, which has long-term financial ramifications for the site owner.
Some sites like to put all their content on a single page, because they feel it's easier for the user to interact with the article when it's on a single page. Many publishing sites like The Wall Street Journal keep most of their larger articles on one page, while others such as BusinessWeek break their longer articles into multiple pages.
Sometimes the motivation for keeping articles on a single page is a fear of metrics, especially among small and mid-sized companies. This doesn't just apply to publishers -- it can apply to any company selling a product or service. By breaking up content into multiple pages, it's a lot easier to measure exactly how engaged the audience is with a content asset. If an article is broken up into two pages and 1,000 people come to page 1, but only 50 click through to page 2, it can evoke an emotional response in the writer of the article (why are only 5% of readers interested enough in my writing to click through to the second half of the article?) or in the webmaster/marketing manager (we're not getting a lot of people to view the later parts of articles, so we must be pretty bad at this web thing). When the article is displayed on a single page, it's a lot easier to lie to yourself and convince yourself that everyone is reading every last word you wrote!
But I think the question is more complicated. How should you balance usability with your site's main priorities? This is a big question for publishers especially, or anyone whose site depends on advertising. For example, CNNMoney.com does a lot of slideshow-type content, especially with feature such as 9 top tech flops and 6 terrific towns on the water. It calls these "galleries", and you'll see the presentation of this content is consistent. They have a short write-up about each one, usually accompanied by pictures, and prominent navigation along the edges (with red Next and Back buttons, and a "1 of 6" indication to let you know where you are in the list). At the bottom of the content, you'll also see a thumbnail navigation element, where you can quickly jump to the one you want to read.
It's in CNNMoney.com's best interests to display its content this way, rather than putting all 9 tech flops in a long list on a single page, simply because it benefits their advertising business. When you click the Next button to go from #1 in the list to #2, that generates a second page view -- and more ad impressions. Since most sites sell display advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, more impressions can equal more money. But sites need to adopt this strategy in moderation, because forcing users to click too much can be annoying. Plus this strategy can often decrease click-through rates on the ads that appear on each page, which has long-term financial ramifications for the site owner.Some sites like to put all their content on a single page, because they feel it's easier for the user to interact with the article when it's on a single page. Many publishing sites like The Wall Street Journal keep most of their larger articles on one page, while others such as BusinessWeek break their longer articles into multiple pages.
Sometimes the motivation for keeping articles on a single page is a fear of metrics, especially among small and mid-sized companies. This doesn't just apply to publishers -- it can apply to any company selling a product or service. By breaking up content into multiple pages, it's a lot easier to measure exactly how engaged the audience is with a content asset. If an article is broken up into two pages and 1,000 people come to page 1, but only 50 click through to page 2, it can evoke an emotional response in the writer of the article (why are only 5% of readers interested enough in my writing to click through to the second half of the article?) or in the webmaster/marketing manager (we're not getting a lot of people to view the later parts of articles, so we must be pretty bad at this web thing). When the article is displayed on a single page, it's a lot easier to lie to yourself and convince yourself that everyone is reading every last word you wrote!
My philosophy? There are some pieces of content that lend themselves perfectly to the multi-page approach, like the CNNMoney.com galleries I mentioned above. Generating multiple page views on these types of pages is also a huge plus, especially for sites that sell CPM advertising. But as a user, if I have to do too much clicking (like if that CNNMoney.com gallery was any more than 10 pages), I'd get sick of it pretty quickly. Personally I like the approach MarketingProfs takes on its longer articles. It defaults to breaking long articles into multiple pieces, but it offers the user an easy and prominent option to override that format, thanks to a "view article on one page" link. I think it's the best of both worlds -- giving users the choice to read an article in a way they're most comfortable, while still defaulting to the multi-page method that generates the greatest number of ad impressions.
1 comments:
Thanks for this - I'm right in the middle of this same dilemma. We are converting old PDF items into HTML on our website and I'm trying to figure out if I convert an 8 page PDF to one html page or multiple pages.
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