Headlines that help
I recently complained on Twitter about this headline originating from a company that consults on plain language projects:
“Driving a positive customer experience across touch points”
Matthew Stibbes is now holding a contest for best and worst headlines.
He also provides us with a brief list of qualities of good headlines:
BBC News’ headlines are the best in the world according to web-usability guru Jakob Nielsen. Nielsen’s guidelines state that web headlines must be:
1.Short
2.Rich in information scent, clearly summarising the target article
3.Front-loaded with the most important keywords
4.Understandable out of context (because headlines often appear without articles, as in search engine results);
5.Predictable, so users know whether they’ll like the full article before they click
Personally, I find headlines and subheads very challenging to write but I appreciate them as a reader.