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Please can you stop this thread. Who is biting whose's tail. It does not add
a damn to the discussion. It is just a waste of bandwith


At 23:37 17-09-96 -0500, you wrote:
>Christopher Harper wrote:
>> 
>> Eric Meyer wrote:
>> >
>> > > << What I am trying to determine is whether any has done
>> > >  scientific work on the subject of scrolling.  I did learn that one major
>> > >  online content provider found that only 10 per cent of its users
>> > >  scrolled from the first screen.  So the provider resigned its pages to
>> > >  include NO scrolls.  I am looking for this kind of evidence if it
>> > >  exists.   >>
>> >
>> > What's your baseline?
>> 
>> Eric, I am trying to find a baseline.  That's the problem I have.  What
>> data exist about scrolling other than conventional wisdom?
>> 
>> In many cases we seem to react to online stats
>> > as if they were something new and different when in fact they only
>> > confirm what we always should have known. We know so little about
>> > traditional readership, either because we don't have good stats or
>> > don't understand the ones we have, that we assume completely
>> > different schema are at work online when, in fact, online readership
>> > may be no different than print readership.
>> That may be true.  But we do know that people do not want to jump from
>> A1 to B13.  Even so, the New York Times still does that.   Fortunately,
>> all other papers don't.   I think we know more about newspaper
>> readership than we know about online readership.  I will grant you,
>> however, that we know less than what we should know about either.
>> > When we talk of online scrolling, for example, we're not talking
>> > about the percentage of those who start a story divided by those who
>> > finish it all the way through the jump. We're talking about the
>> > percentage who, when handed a page containing a story (and others),
>> > choose to follow this one particular story all the way to its
>> > conclusion.
>> There is some limited research that shows that people -- when searching
>> -- only want to see the top screen.
>> > In print, 10% would be a huge number for this. The typical person
>> > may read no more than 1% of the stories offered him. Those who
>> > follow stories through to their jumps are an even smaller number.
>> The 10 per cent is a scroll figure, which would be the equivalent of
>> reading beyond the first or second graf.
>> > It's not the structure or design that's a problem in either case. Its
>> > the interest level, time available, relative value and ease of use of
>> > each individual story.
>> Where's the proof?  You are surmising that without stats.  We don't
>> know.
>> > Only if we foolishly believe that non-journalists read the paper as
>> > methodically as journalists might do we fret when we hear that a typical
>> > reader selects only 1 of 100 stories offered him. We've spent decades
>> > blissfully ignoring that the same sort of rejection rate that occurs
>> > every time we hand a reader a fat daily newspaper.
>> It is indeed foolish to surmise what readers and viewers do without hard
>> proof.  With all due respect, kind sir, you are making some leaps of
>> analysis here without hard proof.  You and I both would like to have the
>> stats necessary to figure out what's going on.  Simply put,  we don't
>> because it ain't easy.  You and I and many people on this list know that
>> we have to come up with these figures pretty darn quick to justify this
>> medium.  Actually, you and I don't because we now have the comfort of
>> the ivory tower of academic life.  Cheers.
>> 
>> --
>> Christopher Harper
>> Associate Professor
>> New York University
>> Department of Journalism
>> 212-998-3846
>> 
>> "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
>> there."
>>   - Will Rogers
>
>-- 
>Christopher Harper				
>Associate Professor
>New York University
>Department of Journalism
>212-998-3846	
>	
>"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
>there."
>  - Will Rogers
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>This message was posted to ONLINE-NEWS. http://www.planetarynews.com/o-n.html
>
>
Jak Boumans
Electronic Media Reporting
Johan Buziaulaan 75
3584 ZV Utrecht
The Netherlands
tel./fax +31 30 2515433


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