Technical writers who produce both print documentation and online help know that you can’t just pour content from one format to another – the different media require different organizational techniques and writing styles. Now that we’re producing documentation for portable devices with small screens, we have to work even harder to make sure the content fits the device. Adobe’s Tech Comm Suite Evanagelist Blog has just published an excellent article by Maxwell Hoffman that explores this subject in more detail. It should be required reading for any writers who are producing online content.
When we read text on a handheld device, if the text is bulleted, indented, or formatted like a typical “technical” document, we can see the equivalent of about two or three spoken sentences. As soon as we “thumb down” to the next page, most of the visual context vanishes. We can only remember so much. This may be the reason that advertisement screenshots for eReaders universally display paragraphs from novels, not indented, bulleted text from technical communications.
Although a great deal of content from blogs and social media is pithy enough for handhelds, oceans of technical instructions destined for your smartphone screen are nowhere near ready to fit the confines of the small screen. If you are presenting steps or key points in a numbered or bulleted list, at a minimum, each item should be less than an iPhone screenful. If that bulleted “thought” or point straddles three or four Smartphone screens, reader retention will dramatically shrink.
I had an epiphany about this point recently when I found an online white paper I had authored about 5 years ago. My thumb nearly fell off scrolling through just three bulleted items. The content was effectively written and formatted for a “full” screen, but I didn’t have the patience for my own thoughts presented in the confines of a handheld smartphone.