measuring web content readability & consistency - with visiblethread clarity grader
DESCRIPTION
Is your web content clear and consistent? Scan 1000s of pages of your web content in minutes and review any clarity and consistency issues. We highlight hard to understand web copy, benchmark your web site against industry peers, and promote transparent web communications while eliminating hours of manual effort. Customizable "control dictionaries" replace the highly manual process used today by marketing teams: Education Institutions can check that course names are consistently represented, and college / university brand names are correct. Off brand dictionaries include unapproved or old course names. Financial Institutions verify consistent representation of currency rates across their own & affiliate sites. Dictionaries in this context include search terms like"$", "£" etc. Digital Agencies support client brand engagements and drive new client business. They build clarity league tables for sector competitors.TRANSCRIPT
Web Governance & Audit Tool
Measuring Web ContentReadability & Consistency –
measures:
Clarity &
Consistency
A quick example
Nice Graphic Design
The learner registration process will not be
deemed to be complete until the appropriate fees
have been paid to the Awarding Body.
VS.
To register as a learner, you must pay
appropriate fees to the awarding body
…but the text is a little less
nice!
Why measure clarity?
People don’t read on the Web: they scan
− Anything that makes the text more difficult to scan impedes
communication.
People use the Web to find specific information and complete
tasks
− People use the web differently than print materials. If visitors can‟t
find the information they are looking for, they quickly go elsewhere.
− Complex language puts a greater cognitive burden on your visitors.
Approachable web language builds trust
− If your competitor has web copy that makes them look approachable,
then you will look stuffy in comparison.
What about consistency?
An example challenge
Is the UAL brand consistent in content?
We created a simple dictionary
Scan results across different sections of the site
The inconsistent terms
Takeaway: Inconsistent brand name
used. Findability impacted
Actual content
With the aim of attracting a rich variety of contributions from a broad selection of people - from academia, media and practice - and utilise contributions for uploading to a newly established international repository for fashion to be housed at the London College of Fashion, University of Arts of the London.
Key content likely not findable and searchable
Your audience may be confused and may not
engage due to a mix of terminology
Your SEO keyword strategy may be diluted
Your content may not align with Brand/Corporate
Standards especially for course names and
approved/disapproved terms.
Why care about language consistency?
Applying Clarity Grader to your
web content review process.
Applying Clarity Grader to your Content Review ProcessWeb governance & managing content quality
As a Content Manager, do you…
• Produce „000s of web pages?
• Using manual processes?
• With many authors?
• On tight deadlines?
Clarity Grader can automatically scan
all web pages to identify content that…
• Scores poorly for clarity & web readability .
• Fails brand standards.
• Uses inconsistent or confusing terminology.
• Has badly implemented SEO.
Content
Planning
Content
Creation
Content
Review
Post-live
Assessment
1. Evaluate editorial quality of online content for:
i. Readability & clarity of language.
ii. Legal & regulatory requirements
iii.Adherence to brand standards.
iv.Consistency of terminology.
v. SEO & Findability.
2. Identify key targets for improvement.
3. Pinpoint the right corrective actions for each web page.
4. Assess the quality of content submitted:
i. Readability & clarity of language.
ii. Legal & regulatory requirements
iii.Adherence to corporate standard.
iv.Consistency of terminology.
v. SEO & Findability.
5. Evaluate the ROI on updated content by:
i. Comparing with other metrics of web performance.
ii. Assessing the quality of work vs. cost of contactors.
6. Plan a new cycle of content improvement.
Using Clarity Grader in your content process
Why should you care?
Clarity Grader drives better outcomes for universities and corporates.
• Given the sheer volume of web copy across sites, making sure your brand message is clear and consistent is really hard. It is a highly manual process, time-consuming and costly.
• Since manual reviews are painful and costly, they are often skipped. Yet difficult language damages your brand value and you compromise your ability to convert online leads.
Clarity Grader helps with the overall Brand.
• Ensures you communicate your product message clearly.
• Ensure that your message is consistent.
• Easily manage your message across sites and micro-sites.
• Slice through 000s of pages of content really quickly.
As part of a new content project.
Use Clarity Grader to review submitted content to
ensure it meets minimum standards.
To comply with regulations.
Use „Good‟ and „Bad‟ language dictionaries in
Clarity Grader to make sure your content is
consistent.
During a PR crisis.
Use Clarity Grader to scan all web
communications to ensure nothing unintended is
said.
During on-going web content review.
Add Clarity Grader to your dashboard & remain
confident in the quality of on-going operations.
Clarity Grader is used in these scenarios…
“VisibleThread can detect a large number of issues, aiding in defect detection, as well as driving consistency and
compliance around loose language.”
Tom Murphy, Research Director, Gartner.
VisibleThread Named “Cool Vendor” by Leading Analyst Firm - Content Analysis Software Identifies
Defects, Risky Language, and Makes Reviewing Documents 45 Percent more Efficient
“The Tool Rocks! It means we‟re able to conduct web quality audits much quicker than before. Readability is
something that all our clients really care about so we‟re now using the Clarity Grader reports for all major brand
engagements.”
Murray Cox, Director of Content Strategy, LBi (Publicis).
“The benefits associated with VisibleThread are twofold: increased efficiency as a result of automation of the
content review-and-inspection process, and prevention of problems downstream in the project lifecycle.”
Michael Azoff, Principal Analyst, Ovum.
“When consumers visit websites to complete complex tasks, complex language is a major barrier. Clarity Grader
provides a great toolset to improve the clarity and usability of websites.”
Terry Golesworthy, President, The Customer Respect Group
“VisibleThread is providing a good product and category for organizations that need to improve process quality,
especially for organizations that have to work around compliance guidelines. That‟s the sweet spot.”
Theresa Lanowitz, Principal Voke
Customers - what people say?
Worried about Clarity or Inconsistency on your site?
Let us show you with a 30 minute demo
Clarity Grader is powered by:
Extras/optional
Copyright Visible Thread 2011 – Confidential and Proprietary
From: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/before_after/index.cfm
„Clear writing‟ seeks to simplify written language; the result is clear
and unambiguous communication.
“When the process of freeing a vehicle that has
been stuck results in ruts or holes, the operator will
fill the rut or hole created by such activity before
removing the vehicle from the immediate area.”
OR
“If you make a hole while freeing a stuck vehicle,
you must fill the hole before you drive away.”
Plain Writing Act of 2010 (Obama signed on Oct 2010), E.O. 12866 & E.O. 12988
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/plLaw/index.cfm
How do you measure unclear content?
Clarity Measures for 9 Australian Universities
Takeaway: Very Complex content on multiple pages.
Level of long & run-on sentences very high. Passive Voice
very high. Audience will not read or engage.
Our back story
• Clarity Grader was created by the people behind VisibleThread.
• Our original motivation was 20 years of pain reviewing large documents. You know the thing, 150 page MS Word or PDF docs.
• So we created a way to scan document content for ‘clarity’. This cut out a lot of manual legwork. This was VisibleThread for Docs.
• We created Clarity Grader (aka VisibleThread for Web) with the same goal in mind, but this time for content analysis of websites.
• We wanted to pin point the weakest content really quickly. Complex and inconsistent language damages your online message and kills brand trust for your customers.
• But, who has time to trawl through a gazillion pages on sites and micro sites?
How does it work?
Scan Multiple Websites across entire site/or microsites
• Clarity Grader analyzes websites for clarity and consistency. We provide detailed reports highlighting wordy, complex and risky language, eliminating hours of manual effort.
• Transparency metrics include; readability, passive language density and long sentence density. These are some of the critical measures satisfying clear writing mandates.
Benchmark your site against your competition
• Instantly compare peer websites side by side for readability, passive language and related metrics. You simply point at a website URL.
• Comparisons allow you benchmark content against ‘best practice’. Reviewers get immediate visibility into the highest risk content in minutes. Clear actionable guidance is provided to rectify deficiencies.
Red-flag Website Text by page
• Flag exact text by page. Display long sentences, passive language, hidden verbs etc. Long sentences reduce clarity. Splitting them flushes out ambiguity and enhances clarity.
• When faced with long and confusing website text, citizens and consumers will pick up the phone. This is costly to the business or government agency in terms of contact center resources.