Blog Readability – what this means for your users

Some famous chap named Albert Einstein once said:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.

Einstein may have had a much higher IQ than me (arguably most people do), but I happen to agree with his statement.

When it comes to blogging, certain topics have different levels of understanding which are dependent on the types of people who read and engage with your content.

Blog readability is how simple you can convey an idea or message which users can read and understand easily.

Is your content easy to understand?

There are multiple ways to improve your turn of phrase, to be understood well:

• Use apps like Grammarly to spell check your work and re-structure words and sentences
• Paste your text into Readable to measure the reading age of your content
• Short and succinct sentences can have much more impact than swathes of paragraphs and keep the reader interested
• Breaking down points into bullet lists (like this one) can provide a clearer overview of your subject matter

How are users viewing your content?

Can your users view your blog content just as easily on a mobile phone device as well as a desktop computer?

As you may think, a phone is not always the best device for viewing a large amount of detailed and interactive information. Be mindful when it comes to linking your posts to certain social media apps like Instagram and Twitter, where the majority of the users will be using their phones to browse through your information.

Installing Google Analytics on your website could give you the ability to track what devices people are using to browse your website. Using this information can help you decide if you need to tailor your content for desktop or mobile devices. 

How accessible is your site?

These days, a public sector website has to adhere to strict accessibility guidelines when it comes to displaying content and information properly to the masses. It can help your users to try and make the best accessible website too!

Some common accessibility issues could be present on your blog posts and website:

• Illegible fonts which don’t work very well for people with Dyslexia
• Small-sized text for people who are short-sighted 
• Bad colour contrast for people with colour blindness

Not having accessible content can lock specific people out of truly experiencing your site to its full extent, which might lead to them leaving abruptly.

A well-built website should address the majority of these issues, but installing a decent accessibility widget could help improve your website in the short term.