Drivers Of Reader Experience

You’re sitting at your computer ready to do some research online. You know some reference websites and you plan to find more.

Of the seven tabs you have open, four are consistently troublesome. You struggle to get through one because the page just won’t load beyond the first few paragraphs; it’s even worse when you try opening the same page on mobile. One page won’t open at all, another is full of images that won’t load. One has the worst search functionality, regardless of what you type into the search bar.

You’re left feeling frustrated and none the wiser, even though you’ve only spent 15 minutes of the two hours you’d put aside.

The truth is, words are only part of the reader experience, and there is a lot more thought and creativity that goes towards delivering a pleasurable reader experience.

3 Enablers You Must Know About

Now that we’ve established context, make it a priority to ensure your audience has the best possible reader experience every time they interact with your content. Readers rarely read word-by-word online; they usually scan the page and pick out individual words or sentences.

We’ve put together a quick list of drivers and why they’re important to consider and integrate while building the right experience.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Every brand’s aim is to attract and retain as many visitors as possible. An excellent step towards making this happen is to ensure your website loads fast no matter where someone is trying to access it from. You improve the reader experience by giving them one less thing to feel frustrated about, you’re one step closer to engaging them.

Every website requires a host—your web host could be anywhere in the world. Think of CDNs as an add-on. When you deploy a CDN it copies parts of your website and stores it on different data center servers across the world. Meaning, when someone tries to visit your website, it’ll load from a server that’s geographically closest to them.

There are so many advantages it’s a complete no brainer—load speed, SEO advantages, conversion rates, the works.

Image Optimization

As a reader, one of the most frustrating experiences is to not have relevant images load. Images are crucial supporters of text and will enhance any kind of reading experience. The guitar solo to a lead singer, if you will.

So, it’s important to make sure your images are optimised to load properly, clearly (without pixelation), and quickly. If you also label them correctly, it makes it easier for search engines to crawl your site and understand the context of your content—improving chances of your site being found, the reader experience being optimal… you get the gist.

Content Management System (CMS)

All websites are built with databases. Instead of trying to log in to servers and make changes one field at a time, a CMS enables you to communicate easily with the database in a secure and easy-to-use fashion.

The reality? Literally everything that goes onto any page on your website can be managed by you, quickly and efficiently. Whether it’s videos you want to embed or pop-ups you want to add, a CMS is a flexible, back-end interface to create, manage and optimise the digital experience you offer. The more optimised your digital, the higher the chances are the reader experience is excellent as well.

There are a plethora of enablers you can leverage—Elasticsearch, analytics, autoscaling frontend servers—each with unique, irrefutable benefits. The first step really is to understand what your reader wants; finding the tools to enhance their experience is what we’re here to help with.