Whether it’s a news headline, story or Web page, a common goal for trained reporters, editors, and designers is to produce quality content that will attract and retain attention. A “kick out” represents an obstacle to that goal. Anything on a given web page that competes with the primary interest of the user is deemed a cognitive “kick-out” because it increases the chances of a user reading/viewing other content, going to another Web site, or terminating use all together. Our research notes that avoiding potential “kick-outs” is equally important to attention-getting strategies.
In the context of producing journalism, early research of text comprehension demonstrated that the most fundamental “kick-outs” were incoherent texts and words unfamiliar to the reader. Today, more elements on a Web page and countless choices for other sites significantly increase the risks for “kick outs.” Here are just a few examples:
- an overwhelming amount of information
- technical difficulties
- information perceived to be outdated
- too many ads
- unacceptably slow download times
- confusing jargon or unknown terms
- content perceived to have little or no relevance
- too much time required to comprehend the content
- unavailable products or information (i.e. broken links)
- too many or too few graphics
- links to another page that covers the current page.
- irritating or offending comments from others
- content from citizens in another community
- poorly produced media
- too many blog comments
- dated content
- content with ideologies inconsistent with those of the user