Measuring structure and organization

I find that most of the discussions about measuring the value of good writing to be frustrating. Yes, you can eke out a fraction of a percent more clicks on something with some flashy content, but then you end up in an arms race of overpowering CTAs and copy that’s been over-optimized with A/B tests that have left it feeling not human-written.

In the end, product and website copy is a mirror of truth for a company. If you can’t get management to agree about what’s important in a page navigation or what the goal of a page is, content is merely the symptom of a dysfunctional organization.

On top of all this, almost any text can use a good edit — not just a spellcheck and proofread, but organizing, removing, and clarifying. It seems like there’s finally a book making this case, at least judging by this review of “Writing for Busy Readers”:

The authors’ other points are less about writing than about design and informational packaging. Organisation matters: a redesigned summons issued by New York City police (for small offences on the street) reduced court no-shows by 13%.

Or about needing management to decide on what the real goal of a piece of copy is rather than hedging bets on everything:

Keeping messages to a single idea—or as few as absolutely needed—helps ensure that they will be read, remembered and acted on. Reducing the number of possible actions has the same effect, too: a link in an email (from, appropriately enough, Behavioral Scientist magazine) attracted 50% more clicks when it was solo than when it was sent alongside a second, “bonus” link.

I have a feeling this book is mostly stuff I already know, but it might be worth a read in order to have some references for the things I keep repeating about writing.