Start List Items With the Word That Differs
When every item in a list starts with the same words, users skip those first words and look further in. Nielsen Norman Group calls this bypassing (Nielsen Norman Group, 2017). The shared opening carries no information, so visitors learn to jump past it.
What the research observed
Bypassing is one of the scanning patterns found in eye-tracking studies of how people read web pages. Scanners lean heavily on the first words of each line, heading, and link. When those first words repeat across a run of items, such as “Learn about X,” “Learn about Y,” and “Learn about Z,” the eye learns that they say nothing new and moves past them. On a heat map, items in such a list show warm middles and cold shared beginnings.
Skipping costs the visitor time. The words that tell one item from another arrive later than they should, and the visitor has to hunt for them on every line.
What it means for a business website
Repeated prefixes show up all over small business sites: service lists that start each line with “Our,” menus where every link starts “Services for,” groups of buttons that all say “Learn more about,” and FAQ questions that each begin “How do I.” Each one makes visitors dig for the word that sets items apart.
The fix is usually a rewrite, not a redesign. “Our residential cleaning” becomes “Residential cleaning.” “Learn more about financing” becomes “Financing options.” The list gets shorter, and the first word of each item now does the work a scanner expects it to do.
What to do
- Review your navigation, service lists, FAQ headings, and button groups for items that share opening words.
- Rewrite each item so the differentiating word comes first.
- Drop filler prefixes like “Our” and “Learn about” wherever they add nothing.
- Where a shared word is needed for clarity, move it into the heading above the list.
Sources
- Pernice. F-Shaped Pattern of Reading: Misunderstood, But Still Relevant. Nielsen Norman Group, 2017.