: Re: Do 'text walls' scare off readers? A comment on a recent question of mine claims Right, so that's [large unformatted text blocks scaring off some readers in certain contexts is] a myth.

@Sue2132873

Vote Up Vote Down

Who wants to waste time on bad content?
Regular consumers learn heuristics based on prior consumption. For example, you probably enjoy the sight of your favorite food because you've had it before and know that it's good.
Readers are content consumers. After having consumed tons of content, they've acquired heuristics for estimating the quality of content before investing the effort to consume it.
And text walls stink
Walls of text have a horrible stench. They invoke memories of pointless rants, poorly formed reasoning, and unorganized trains of thought. I'd guess that most of us read text walls at first when we were young, but after each bad experience, we became less and less inclined 'til we stop reading them altogether.
So, yes, text walls will drive away users. They're not really scared so much as they have better things to do. The internet has no shortage of stuff to read; why waste time on something that, based on experience, seems likely to be of lower quality?

(0)

Login to post a comment!