speech bubble | The official vzaar blog

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen has recently published evidence that demonstrates “that users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.” And the more writing there is, the less people read. You can read his article in full here. Amusingly he explains his findings with reams and reams of text, most of which I haven’t read, which just shows how right it is.

Of course, to the average eBay seller this is hardly a surprise. And if truth be told, my first reaction was “as much as that?” But it does reinforce the need to trim down the text and ensure that your eBay listings are as lean as possible. For some great tips on how you can ensure that less is more, check out Sue’s post on Tamebay.

Bullet points, pithy prose and intuitive formatting are the order of the day. But it does also reinforce our firmly held belief at vzaar, that the written word and still images are not always the right way for sellers to get their message across. Buyers, at best, consume a third of the text on a listing. Is video more efficient? We think so.

People absorb information in different ways and providing people with moving pictures and audio with a video might be the way to get more of your message across. Rather like when you’re in a pub and your eyes are drawn to the TV playing in the corner, a video can be a more alluring and addictive information source.

| Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)