How can you overcome the obstacles of reading on smartphones?
More than half of our audience members now engage with our content, visit our webpages and read our emails on their mobile devices.
And that’s a problem. Because it’s a lot harder to reach readers on a phone screen than it is to reach them on a laptop or desktop.
When reading on mobile, your audience members:
1. Understand less of your message
Mobile web visitors also comprehend less of your message.
Webpages are 48% harder to understand on an iPhone than on the big screen, according to research by R.I. Singh and colleagues from the University of Alberta. In the study, web visitors understood:
- 39% of what they read on a desktop screen
- Just 19% of what they read on mobile screens
2. Remember less of your message
Short-term memory is bad and getting worse. (I looked up a short-term-memory loss joke for this spot this morning, but I can’t remember what it was.)
Problem is, we can only remember what we can see. With a 3-by-9-inch screen, we can’t see very much. In fact, content displayed above the fold on a 30-inch monitor requires five screens on a smartphone, according to the authors of User Experience for Mobile Applications and Websites.
Reading your webpage on a smartphone is like reading War and Peace through a keyhole.
3. Are less likely to act on your message
When the IRS improved its webpages about tax law changes, employee call center accuracy increased by 10%, reports TJ Larkin of Larkin Communications Consulting.
When the bureau printed the exact same webpages and left them in employees’ cubicles, accuracy increased by 42%.
The best way to move readers to act?
How can you overcome the obstacles of reading on the small screen to reach readers online?
How can you reach mobile readers?
More than half of your audience members now receive your emails, visit your web pages and engage with your social media channels via their mobile devices, not their laptops.
Problem is, people spend half as long looking at web pages on their mobile devices than they do on their desktops. They read 20% to 30% slower online. And it’s 48% harder to understand information on a smartphone than a laptop.
In this environment, how can you reach readers online?
Learn how to overcome the obstacles of reading on the small screen at Reach Readers Online — our web-writing workshop starting June 20. You’ll master a four-part system for getting the word out on mobile devices.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
