Readability: declaring war on marketing mush

In several posts (here, here and here), I’ve discussed the importance of readability. Without high readability, you cannot achieve clear writing. Sad to say, most high-tech marketers write copy at the low end of the readability scale. One example for today:

At random, I selected CollabNet. I clicked through to the first product page and tested its readability. It is an abysmal 3.6 on the Flesch Reading Ease test. That is far below the readability of a typical tax form.

Here are a few sample ranges of test scores, from higher readability (top of list) to lower readability (bottom of list):

60s Reader’s Digest
50s Time magazine
40s The Wall Street Journal
30s Harvard Law Review; white papers
20s IRS forms; academic papers
10s Many high-tech web sites

In a Flesch Reading Ease test, your copy gets marked down for both long sentences and long words. On the page I tested, the average sentence length is 24.2 words (very long). The average word length is 6.3 characters (long, but not bad for tech copy).

I pasted the first two paragraphs from that page into Word:

“Subversion® is the new standard for version control and Software Configuration Management (SCM) in globally distributed organizations that need to share source code across locations. Ease of use and out-of-the-box support for remote teams make Subversion the best solution for global projects, compared to legacy tools that are inadequate for distributed teams and too expensive to run.

“CollabNet Subversion is an enterprise-ready distribution of Subversion that includes certified binaries, platform-specific installers, certified plugins for other tools, and enterprise-ready add-ons.”

Scores:
Words per sentence: 26.3
Characters per word: 6.3
Flesch Reading Ease score: 7.6 (much harder than a tax form)

Then I spent about four minutes editing the copy: mostly shortening the sentences; pretty much ignoring word length. Here’s the result:

Subversion® runs your version control and Software Configuration Management (SCM). It’s the new standard for globally sharing source code. It is easy to use. It immediately supports your remote teams. Legacy tools deliver none of these benefits and they cost too much to run.

CollabNet Subversion is ready to install and use in your company. It includes certified binaries, platform-specific installers, certified plugins for other tools, and enterprise-ready add-ons.

Scores:
Words per sentence: 9.8
Characters per word: 5.6
Flesch Reading Ease score: 41.1 (as easy as The Wall Street Journal)

Now, I’m sure you can think of further refinements. For example, maybe the sentences are now a little too short and choppy. Perhaps back off a bit on the abbreviating. And, yes, the folks at CollabNet would probably shriek that I busted up the phrase “globally distributed organizations that need to share source code across locations.” Likely it’s a verbatim lift from the company’s key-message platform.

But I do think I’ve made my point. This is a typical high-tech company, selected at random for a readability test. The company seems to go out of its way to repel people who visit its web site. A stranger in rural New Hampshire edited a few sentences for a few minutes, sharply raising readability. The marketers at CollabNet could (and should) do likewise.

The Takeaway: The quickest way to increase the clarity of tech copy is to increase readability by reducing sentence length. For example, in less than an hour, you probably could transform your home-page copy from barely readable to highly readable.