In our omnichannel world, where attention spans are short and the cognitive load is great (thanks, AI!), effective content design plays a key role in reader engagement. It’s more important than ever to structure online text so that our readers can easily scan, understand, and retain the key points.
Double underline that for readers who rely on accessibility aids such as screen readers.
The element of content design you’ll want to apply is “chunking.” Chunking refers to breaking up information into meaningful, bite-sized sections or “chunks” that are relatively similar in scope and intensity. Visually, this means that your paragraphs are short, and there are fewer of them under each subheading.
Richard Johnson-Sheehan, the technical communication guru, generally refers to this idea as “partitioning.” Rather than presenting a dense wall of text, you divide your content into well-organized subsections with meaningful headings.
I offer some techniques for applying this element of content design here. However, the starting point is to understand how chunking aids the reader.
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