Numerals Improve Reader Comprehension

Or - How I'm having to un-learn everything I learned in English class.

According to a sophisticated eyetracking study on how to present numbers, Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen reveals that "having your facts stand out visually by presenting them as numerals is an easy way to enhance credibility by making your page seem more useful." One reason he gives is that most Internet users are looking for facts, and numerals represent facts. This is certainly true for product pages but any page can benefit from the compact representation numerals offer. Digital numbers look very different from everything else in a block of text, making them stand out.

Online Rules are Different
The more I write for the Web, the more I have learned that it is very different from other writing. Good grammar and punctuation skills alone aren't enough. This information on using numerals is different from what we've all been taught about writing numbers. In print design, there is always a quest to make numbers stand out less. The exact thing that makes numerals good on the Web makes them problematic in print: digital numerals stop the reader's eye.

Mr. Nielsen gives the following additional numerical guidelines "when writing for the Web:

• Write numbers with digits, not letters (23, not twenty-three).
• Use numerals even when the number is the first word in a sentence or bullet point.
• Use numerals for big numbers up to one billon:
  • 2,000,000 is better than two million.
  • Two trillion is better than 2,000,000,000,000 because most people can't interpret that many zeros.
  • As a compromise, you can often use numerals for the significant digits and write out the magnitude as a word. For example, write 24 billion (not twenty-four billion or 24,000,000,000).
• Spell out numbers that don't represent specific facts."

Some of those guidelines may be making a few of us cringe. I know I get a little twitchy every time I think about starting a sentence with numerals. But the Internet isn't as much about grammar and rules as it is about the fast exchange of information and ideas. Nowhere else is it so clear that readers scan for data, and when they don't find what they need quickly and easily, they move on.

Whatever you do, the bottom line is that having a successful Website includes making information available and easy for your site visitor's to find and understand quickly.