Please note, the following post is co-authored by RJI Faculty Fellow Paul Bolls (@mediabrain99) and Heather Shoenberger, doctoral student at the Missouri School of Journalism and co-investigator on Bolls’ research.
After the great response from readers, we decided to address some of the issues that we believe will lead to more brain friendly journalism. We know that websites have a split second (if that) to grab the attention and draw a potential news consumer in. Within hundreds of milliseconds after exposure, very basic motivational processes in the brain begin to shape attitudes and decisions that drive information seeking behavior online and form the foundation for user experience.
In this post we want to respond to a general issue raised by responses to the prior post “brain friendly journalism.” While websites are obviously produced for different purposes, at the most basic brain level, where these core motivational processes unfold that are critical to determining a “brain friendly” online experience, purpose is somewhat irrelevant. Web content that is designed in a way to connect with core functions of the brain, regardless of the purpose, will result in a better user experience. For example, a core function of the brain is to scan the environment and quickly determine the motivational significance of information. This is why packaging related information together in sections of a website is likely a critical element of brain friendly journalism. It has been very difficult finding truly good examples of “brain friendly” journalism but this website is doing several things better, from a “brain” perspective.
In the interest of transparency it is important to disclose that Tulsa World is a partner in the experiment that will be conducted this spring. Visually, their web team is attempting to package semantically related information together. One specific strength of this design is the approach of providing expanded, more detailed stories with brief headline links and attempting to group related content together. Note you have to scroll down in the site to see this. This approach is less likely to cognitively overload readers with an information dump of a lot of story links that are poorly grouped into semantically related categories. Like any websites there are aspects of design that don’t match up particularly well with brain function. Web producers need to be careful running scrolls of unrelated stories at the top of a website. For one thing, information pacing tends to be too fast. Second, flashing unrelated headlines can be distracting to the information search process and have a negative effect on user experience.
The project we are embarking on is set to answer the question: what elements will decrease bounce-rate on a news website, encourage news consumers to engage with the site longer than they do now and make them smarter for doing so? Brain friendly online journalism consists of a combination of web design, ease of navigation and easily digested content.
Before the Internet, newspapers were solely delivered as a paper product. The idea behind the product was to put as much information into the limited space as possible. The paper was divided into sections, each of finite space. Even people who read the paper from cover to cover eventually came to an end. Now, as the newspaper industry has attempted to make a presence online while holding steadfast to its print product, newspaper websites are cluttered with video content, written story content, banner advertising, pop-up advertising and other stimuli. They are overwhelming and it is often difficult to navigate a news site and find the information you are looking for amidst the plethora of content. So here are some points that we think lead to brain friendly journalism.
Web Design:
What is beautiful is good. This adage may not be true for every circumstance but it is certainly true for a website that is looking to draw in readers. Product advertisers have known for years that an aesthetically pleasing product will increase approach behaviors, grounded in basic motivational processes in the brain, among consumers but the news industry has yet to realize its potential as a communication product. Our coming research will address issues of aesthetics as they apply to web design and specifically news websites. Variables that we plan to manipulate are proximity, alignment and contrast.
Proximity:
The brain’s memory network clumps ideas and topics together. Pretend someone says the word “pizza.” You may have immediately also called up the words: Dominos, tomato, cheese, etc. These clumps are referred to as memory networks. A brain friendly news website is likely to be one that successfully clumps news items by topic in a way that is consistent with memory networks.
Alignment:
It seems simple, but alignment of fonts, articles, banner ads and other advertising can put the brain at ease or have it scrambling to find the center, resting point on a page. Scrambling is likely to lead to bouncing.
Contrast:
Humans are sometimes referred to as cognitive misers. We don’t like to use even a little bit of our brain power if we don’t have to. Thus, if the font is the same, the colors are not complimentary, and the advertising looks exactly like a news story the brain has to work too hard to delineate types of content. If the reader has to work to understand the different types of content, they may click to another site.
Content
Previous research by Bolls and Wise has shown that content is remembered and attended to more when the style of writing is narrative versus standard inverted pyramid style. This is a proposition we hope to be able to verify this Spring in the online environment. Narrative style tends to be more brain friendly. This phenomenon is likely the result of making the news information more easily digestible by the information processing mechanism/the human brain. It is thought that narrative style may fill in more blanks for the reader such as emotion and overall tone of the news.
Ease of Navigation
Here again, proximity will play a role. Articles that are about politics should link to others on politics and in an organized fashion. All of the questions that are answered in a typical news story (Who, What, When, Why, How) need to be answered on the macro level in the “memory network” of a news site.
These are the principles of web design that we think the news industry needs to tap into and that we are testing to see if they truly lead to brain friendly journalism. Results for all of the primary research conducted in this project will be known this April. We look forward to sharing that and continuing this very engaging online conversation!
Comments
Makes sense
The company I was working for launched a new website without any input from the editorial team. It was created by a marketing firm, and I thought it was a big turn-off to readers. All of a sudden, the stories were buried, there were too many categories, and the home page looked as if there was nothing to read. There was a huge "slider" at the top that mixed editorial and advertising, and I figured it was never clear to readers what that actually was. Readers had to scroll down to find the first story. It's nice to read about this in terms of brain functions. Great research.
Carol, sounds like your
Carol, sounds like your editorial team had a more intuitive understanding of the brain than the marketing firm. Thanks for the encouragement. We will be excited when we finally get to share results of the experiment.
misunderestimation
What if I don't want my brain friendly? That is what the headline means, yes?
Chronological is best
"Second, flashing unrelated headlines can be distracting to the information search process and have a negative effect on user experience."
Many news companies and web companies (like Town News) have tried to figure this out without success. The wrong assumption here is that people don't like unrelated headlines. In my experience that is completely false. People who are interested in news and events of a certain geographic location like to read headlines and stories of everything that is going on. That is why, in my experience, chronological order from top to bottom is the most reader friendly. The newest story goes on top (no matter the topic) and the reader checks back 4-6 times a day looking at the top of the page for the stories added since his/her last visit. It works! 95% of the news sites out there don't do this and I can't understand it. Check out http://Gasconade.CountyNewsLIVE.com or http://www.TheBatavian.com to see examples of this style of news site. Simple chronological works and it gets people back multiple times a day.
If people want to read several stories of a related topic, they can always use the search box, or they can click on a department list.
Thank You
Screen Reading v. Paper Surface Reading.
Screen Reading v. Paper Surface Reading.
Dan Bloom brings news that MRI brain imaging lab is to study differences in screen-reading, paper-surface reading.
Dan is a freelance writer based in Taiwan. His hunch that reading on paper is superior in terms of brain chemistry to reading off screens has yet to be proven or dismissed, but he hopes future reserach using fMRi and PET scans
will help explain the differences in terms of neuroscience.
TEXT
Dr Ellen Marker studies reading. But not off screens or in
paper books. Her research is done in a Quincy laboratory.
The pioneering neuroscientist analyzes brains in their most enthusiastic reading state, hoping to understand the differences between reading off screens and reading on paper surfaces.
Like me, Dr Marker feels that her studies will show reading on paper is superior to reading off screens in terms of
retention, processing, analysis and critical thinking.
But first, let’s see what the scans will be like.
Dr Marker asks me to put myself into an fMRI machine so she and his team can study which areas of the brain are activated by reading text on paper compared to reading the same text on a computer screen or a Kindle e-reader.
And this is why I’m here. Today I will donate my brain scans to science.
Among the things that Market has discovered so far is that reading on paper might be something we as a civilization should not ever give up.
“Even though reading on screens is useful and convenient, and I do it all the time, I feel that reading on paper is something we should never cede to the digital revolution,” Marker, 43, says. “We need both.”
On the day I climb into the brain imaging cocoon, I am thinking about what it all might mean. But since I am just a guinea pig and not a scientist, I will have to wait for the results.
I enter a sterile lab, and Marker and her four associates greet me, all in white lab coats.
As they hand me my a pale blue gown to change into, I have
second thoughts — “How can I read while lying down horizontally my back, not my preferred reading mode?” — but decide to push myself.
Science needs me!
The scientists load me into the machine and I’m off.
Next step: They strap my head down, because any movement distorts the brain imaging. Ever try to read a book without facial movements?
I feel as if I’m being shoved into the middle of a toilet paper roll, the walls so close my eyelashes almost graze them.
Then I hear a voice through the earphones I’m wearing. It’s Dr Marker.
“You okay in there?” she asks.
Graduate student Dan Smith, 52, tells me to relax before
running around to join the other scientists in the control room.
With the invention of the fMRI only 20 years ago, along came the ability to look at brain activity. Marker says that by understanding a function as gigantic as reading, how the reading brain does its magic dance, a response that hijacks all of one’s attention, she might also learn how reading on screens could be inferior to reading on paper.
“The more we understand how the brain works,” she says, “the more we will be able to help people modulate its activity.”
As the machine switches on, it sounds like a jackhammer. I follow Marker’s instructions and as I do, the group watches my brain on their computer monitors. I will read passages from a novel, and then later I will read the same passages on a Kindle. I just hope the Kindle does not blow up inside the brain scan machine!
Research and teaching take up most of Marker’s time, but when she has a spare moment, she thinks about what all this might mean for the future of humankind.
During my first hour in the fMRI machine, researchers map my brain’s reading paths to find out which parts correlate to which regions of the brain.
“You have 10 minutes,” Marker says through my earphones near the end of our test. “Keep reading.”
On the other side of the glass pane, the scientists can see my brain lighting up as I read on paper and as I read on a screen. Regions light up in different ways, Marker says.
Komisaruk discusses what her research could do for the future of humankind. “We need to know if reading on screens is going to be good if it replaces all our reading on paper.”
Marker’s lab has paid me a $100 subject fee, so I want to give them their money’s worth.
After all, it’s not easy to get funding for this stuff — Marker
says she spends at least half of her time applying for grants.
“There’s no premium on studying paper reading modes versus
screen-reading modes in this society,” she tells me as Smith murmurs, “What do you expect? The gadgetheads want to take over.”
When the tests are over, Marker tells me the data takes two hours to convert, but it can take much longer to make sense of it.
“We’ll be at this for a while,” she says.
One of the biggest conundrums turns out to be a nagging
question for all mankind: What if reading on screens is not good for retention of data, emotional connections and critical thinking skills?
Marker begins slipping more and more into her thoughts. “Neurons, little bags of chemicals, create
awareness,” he says, “but how? How does the brain read?
What is reading, really?”
I see that at the heart of all her research, there is a
philosopher trying not only to understand reading, but also figure out the nuts and bolts that make up the reading brain.
“It’s the hard question I want to answer,” she says. “What is
the reading brain really all about?
“I find that,” she adds, “and I find the Nobel Prize.”
Written by Dan Bloom - Published on February 7, 2012
Dan... No doubt! I read the
Dan... No doubt! I read the FT paper edition and can never get Patek Philip watches, Chopard or Goldman Sachs client services out of my head. Ask me what was on the NYT website and I am lost.
in reply to danbloom
@robelroy,
thanks for backing these anecdotal evidence stories up! I don't know, if i this age of sarcasm and irony if you meant what you wrote, but assuming you really did mean it, then GOOD! if you were pulling my leg, par for the course. But watch: in the near future, real MRI and PET SCAN studies WILL show my hunch was right, but we need hard science, not just anecdotal evidence. Stay tuned. The entire web industry will be turned upside down by one Danny Bloom (1949-2032)....
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