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Yes. The Starch organization has documented it for decades for newspapers.
>That's where the humbling moment of truth comes in.
>
>This means that since the article went up on Sept. 1, only 26% of people
>have read it to the end (well, they may have just opened the third page
>and given up, but let me cling to the illusion). I made a quick
>comparison with a few other multi-page articles on our site, and they
>came in at 18% and 20% respectively, so maybe that's all I can expect.
>
Actually, it means your article was read to the end by 30% more people than the next best article. So that's nothing to sneeze at--unless you have hay fever, of course.
>Obviously navigation is a important consideration. If people don't
>understand that there are multiple pages and how to access them, they're
>not going to get very far. I wonder what a good completion percentage
>is on this sort of thing? Anybody have comparative numbers? Any studies?
Darren,
I didn't follow the link to your article, but when you call something an "article," there is a presumption on the part of most readers that it follows the "inverted pyramid" construction of typical newpaper articles. That is, the reader assumes (unconsciously, after long conditioning) that you state your important facts and conclusions at the top and trail off to the supporting details in descending order of importance.
Now if you were writing short fiction or poetry, you would have every right to feel disheartened that people don't read it to the end; but if you convey the main bullets in the first few paragraphs, that is probably enough information for the vast majority of readers.
However, if you want the statistics on this kind of behavior, I think you might want to begin with Starch. They really are the experts on how far people read and under what circumstances. (Hint: "Continued on page D-7" is a great way to shed readers.)
Dick
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