Pyramid journalism

759 words (Approximately a 4 minute read)

User habits are changing; we are consuming information in new and different ways, and from and increasing number of competing sources. Long-form broadsheet articles are up against tweets limited to 280 characters. The constant present of a mobile phone provides even greater access to information that ever, yet this comes at a compromise of all other activities throughout the day.

Attention levels have dropped by 50%, down to 8 seconds, less than that of a goldfish
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So the question is, how can we best deliver our information to the user without knowing how much time they have and what their current situation is?

Three levels of confidence

One way to maximise the efficiency of your writing is to present the entire article in multiple forms, synchronously.

First, we need to to reduce the content down to its purpose, a list of points we are trying to make. This will allow us to dedicate a section for each point, where we can then provide a hierarchy of three levels of information.

1. Headline
2. Lead text
3. Body copy

Each of these levels serves a different attention level for the user—it provides maximum content saturation with minimum compromise on the user. You may have noticed I have done this at the start of the article, let’s look again:

I am in fact using this pattern throughout this article. Let’s look at each of these levels in turn.

Headline

For those highly distracted or time-bound users, we can still deliver the main messages of our content through cleverly written headlines.

These should be limited to a maximum of two lines to ensure they user can scan them quickly. If written well, they can give the user just enough information to decide whether or not they should keep reading, or proceed to the next point. In theory, the user can gleam the entire purpose of the article by reading the headlines alone.

Lead text

Should the user find that the headline is of interest to them, they may decide to continue reading for further information.

However, they are not yet ‘hooked’ enough to read a couple of paragraphs of text; here, instead, they need a single sentence that expands upon the headline (without repeating it) to provide the full context of the point in question.

Once again, they user may decide at this point to keep on reading, or move on to the next point.

Body copy

We can now present the remainder of the information around the point in question, safe in the knowledge that the user is committed to reading and wants the full details.

It is important to first ensure we have structured our content around a list of points to ensure we are not providing too much information here that might be better presented as its own section. It is fine to present multiple paragraphs—in fact is it encouraged over one long paragraph—as long as each paragraph is closely related to the current point.

A typical HTML structure might look as follows:

<section>
	<h2>Section title up to two lines long.</h2>
	<p class="lead-text"><b>Lead text expanding upon the title 
	but not exceeding a single sentence in length.</b></p>
	<p>The body text presented in the form of succinct paragraphs to deliver the 
	remainder of the information. Here we can go into the finer details of the
	point we are trying to make.</p>
	<p>Supplementary paragraphs are welcomed to provide 'head space' for the
	reader to think and absord the information without being overwhelmed.</p>
</section>

Conclusion

Use a typographic hierarchy to speak to multiple users at once.

Those without time pressure and a higher current attention capacity will continue reading through the headline and lead text to the finer details in the body text. Users in a rush or feeling distracted can still gain useful information from your headlines and lead text that may encourage them to return to the article at a later date.

Combined with a structured breakdown of your article into sequential sections, you can ensure you are reaching the widest audience possible through your content and avoiding any unnecessary losses due to attention deficits.