Author, Content Design Manager, Content Strategist and UX speaker Candi Williams wears a lot of hats. Readability is a key part of her content design strategy. How does she use Readable to achieve her writing goals?
Why does readability matter?
We asked Candi why readability matters to writers. Here’s what she had to say:
“Fact: good readability is good for everyone. It’s not about ‘dumbing down’ language (pfft) or even keeping things simple, it’s about making sure that people truly ‘get’ the information that we’re relaying to them. That matters because there is a big difference between reading something and understanding it - and clicks and scrolls don’t equal comprehension.”
We totally agree with Candi that readability is about opening up your content, not dumbing it down.
Readability is about opening up your content, not dumbing it down.
You could scan through a whole webpage of content and have no idea what the copy is trying to tell you - that’s not going to inform, communicate, or convert.
Candi did a brilliant talk on this recently on behalf of the Nationwide Digital team for a Ladies That UX meetup. She made some really astute points about the importance of simplicity in content design.
The principles we ran through tonight. Thank you so much to @candiwrites and the amazing team @AskNationwide . We had a blast and learnt so much. You definitely need to take this talk on the road ♥️ pic.twitter.com/Q2o38jX3Xb
— LadiesThatUX Bristol (@LadiesThatUXBRS) July 25, 2019
How does Readable benefit Nationwide’s digital strategy?
Here’s what Candi thinks about using Readable as part of her content strategy in her role at Nationwide Digital:
“As a writer, Content Design Manager and Psycholinguistics grad, I’ve been geeking out and banging on about this for years. What Readable does is make it measurable. It makes readability tangible and gives the entire organisation something they can gather around.
One thing that constantly fascinates me is that readability isn’t just of interest for professional writers - it’s something everyone can learn from. Having a tool as simple and insightful as readable has really helped make readability a hot topic across our organisation.”
We’re also fascinated by psycholinguistics and language acquisition - we’ve recently been gushing about how good readability is recognized by the brain.
It’s great to hear that Readable brings our lovely users a tangible metric that teams can gather insight from. We strive to bring you the best, most reliable readability tool on the market.
We strive to bring you the best, most reliable readability tool on the market.
Whereas other tools calculate certain text features - such as line breaks - in a way that’s very unforgiving and doesn’t make sense, Readable brings analysis into the 21st century. All this delivered in a way that’s simple and easy to understand.
So digital professionals like Candi and her team can be confident that Readable is optimized for web writing in teams that have a host of other metrics at their disposal.
Just as you respect your readers’ time by delivering readable content, we respect your time and deliver your results quickly and clearly.
Why did you choose Readable.com for your readability score?
Okay, maybe we were fishing for compliments here. Here’s why Candi chose us:
“I love that Readable are a UK-based team and you are constantly optimising and adding new features. Now we have Readable Pro, I’m really looking forward to making the most of it. Your service is super quick too. Keep up the good work.”
We’re delighted to receive positive feedback on our customer service as this is a huge priority to us.
Our users’ feedback is highly influential on us adding new features — and we have some exciting new things coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled and never hesitate to let us know what you want to see next.
It looks like with the help of ReadablePro, Candi’s doing amazing work with readability and the Nationwide Digital team are successfully optimizing their content. Well done from us!
Their amount of ‘A’ rated pages is wowing us and our website auditing feature continues to keep tabs on their new pages. Why not try a free sample report and see how your website is performing?
Many thanks to Candi for taking the time to tell us her story and how she uses readability in her work. We’re working on showcasing our subscribers and putting a spotlight on how they’re using readability to supercharge their content.
Follow Candi: @candiwrites
If you too want us to write a feature on you as an individual or a company, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
