Make your content readable

We all want our content read. That is the objective. Here are some great ideas on how to improve the readability of our sites. As a digital executive, while you have staff devoted to content, you should pay attention to some basic concepts to focus on a content strategy. Strategy is your job.

When your content is highly readable, your audience is able to quickly digest the information you share with them — a worthy goal to have for your website, whether you run a blog, an e-store or your company’s domain.

Best Practices for Improving Your Website's Usability (from Mashable)

Here are some best practices:

• Use visuals strategically
• Keep content as concise as possible
• Use headings to break up long articles
• Help readers scan your webpages quickly
• Use bulleted lists and text formatting
•  Give text blocks sufficient spacing
• Make hyperlinked text user-friendly

Digital executives understand the basic concepts and make sure the experience for the customer is supported by a great content strategy.

Just the facts ~~ Please!!

Dragnet's Sgt. Joe Friday character frequently implore informants to provide 'Just the facts'. We have all kinds of "facts", data from analytic platforms and internal operational systems. Take the call center or a website. There is so much there that can help improve digital experiences dramatically because it separates fact from fiction.

To mine this data for experience improvement opportunities, focus our efforts in examining the actual behavior of customers. Many companies use Google analytics on their website. It helps us understand where visitors are going and what they do when they get there. Nothing like the facts. One company I know of used web analytics to prove a 65% customer drop-off rate at a point where login was required, prior to checkout. And when analysts at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) mined web analytics data for design opportunities, they found users pogo-sticking between search results and hotel landing pages, which tipped them off to the fact that users were digging for specific information.

Here are some other things to look for:

• Study customers' mobile and tablet behavior
• Examine customer behavior across channels
• Look at the moments that matter

This is powerful for improving the customer experience. We have the facts.

What is the difference between responsive vs. adaptive web design?

Users who access your websites through their mobile devices or other display screens really do not care what method you use, just as long as that they can effectively navigate your website on whatever device they happen to be using.

For that reason, the two methods described in this article have been devised for web developers to meet the challenge, and while responsive (RWD) and adaptive (AWD) design methods are both addressing the issue for rendering websites on mobile devices, there are subtle differences between them that it helps to be aware of.

More here: What is the difference between responsive vs. adaptive web design? | TechRepublic.