What the hell is “Scrollability” and why do you need to master it?
The Psychology of Scrolling: How to Hook Readers in the Digital Era
What the hell is “Scrollability” and why do you need to master it?
You don’t think of scrollability when you’re reading a book, do you? You sit down, get some good lighting, and settle in for a read—that’s the ideal at least.
That’s how I imagine you’re reading this. There’s no way you’re stuck in line at the bank, or you popped open your email client on the way to work, or while you’re eating breakfast.
Right?
🤣
Of course you’re reading this on your phone, and of course you’ve got a million things on your mind. That’s the state of reading and writing online.
A funny thing happens when you read online, you read in an F pattern.
Here’s what I mean… You read the headline and maybe the first sentence or two, you’ll scroll down half a page and read another headline, and then you go alllllll the way to the bottom to see how long the article is. And it’s not just you. Every. Single. Person. It’s hardwired into how we use the internet.
We could crack a bottle of whisky and lament all afternoon. Still won’t change it.
What do you do? I say we lean in. If we’re writers who have an important lesson we’ve got to play the psychological game.
The Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan
Where you post matters. Not because one platform has more potential eyeballs than another. It matters because where you consume information changes how you consume information.
You’re not a crook, you’re just putting on a little makeup
Remember the Nixon Kennedy debate? Nixon refused make-up and looked like a pale sweaty mess, while Kennedy was suave and charming. The entire TV audience was convinced Kennedy won. But try and tell that to someone who listened on the radio… Nixon’s rhetoric was much stronger than Kennedy’s.
How they get your message is just as important as what your message is.
Scrolability doesn’t mean you weaken your message—far from it. It means you adjust the formatting for the online audience…
Increase the number of line breaks
Add more headlines than you would in a book
Split your paragraphs so they’re shorter—even if that means they’re not a full paragraph
Convert a normal, comma separated list, into bullet points
Gauchely use Bold and Underlines
Pop in a quote if a headline or line break doesn’t make sense
Don’t be trashy, just enough to help your reader get through the F scroll so they want to read the rest. Just imagine if Nixon had put a little make up on and rolled his shoulders back. Kennedy would have had a fight on his hands.
You’re the guide—hijack their distracted rabbit brain so you can actually help them. Ethically, of course.
What’s beautiful about this approach is you don’t have to change what you wrote at all. You just need to adjust the formatting. I tried my best to use this article as an example. I could have added another headline somewhere toward the beginning to help hook you a little deeper.
Instead, I made the choice to try and pull you through with three short lines of text. The feeling you should have is that you’re being pulled through the article. Sometimes it’ll feel like a lazy river…
Other times?
Like
Going
Over
A
Waterfall!
Use the bullet points I gave you above on your next post. Tastefully layer them in and then send it to me.*
Enough for now, go write something
-Kian
*Seriously! Send it to me. I want to read your stuff.