Make Sure Your Website Gets an F

Make Sure Your Website Gets an F Make Sure Your Website Gets an F Make Sure Your Website Gets an F By Mark Nichol Do you have your own blog or Web site, or are you responsible for the site of another individual or an organization or company? If so, remember that the medium is (also) the message how the information is presented affects how it is received. So, to help site visitors engage with your content, consider the F not the letter f, but the online-design principle of the F-shaped pattern. One way people who study engagement with online content measure that engagement is by eye tracking: observing the eye movements of test subjects as they navigate within and between pages on a Web site. Research results have shown that most site visitors scan Web sites with eye movements roughly corresponding to the F shape. Because Western culture is, well, acculturated to engaging in text-based visual stimuli from the top left of a piece of content, Web designers have learned to put the most important visual information in that position on a Web page. (Quick what do you see at the top left of this page? That’s right, the logo form of the site name its brand.) And because readers of English (and all other Indo-European languages) read from left to right, it is natural for our eyes to move to the right from our first point of reference. That means that usually, our first eye-tracking movement is a line like the top horizontal line in the uppercase version of the letter f. Then, accustomed as we are to return to the left margin of a page, we backtrack horizontally or return diagonally to that location (as opposed to reading boustrophedon, or in a zigzag pattern). At this point, we skim from left to right again, as if forming with the movement of our eyes the letter f’s second horizontal element. A snapshot of an eye-tracking study (which often employs heat-mapping technology and connect-the-dots lines to record the ocular oscillations) may show multiple horizontal sweeps, but these lines generally extend less and less as the eyes travel downward, and a vertical line along or near the left margin of the page is also an almost invariable artifact of such studies, demonstrating that many site visitors scan down the page at about the same short distance from the margin. Variations occur, of course, especially when the page designer incorporates an arresting textual or illustrative element elsewhere on the page, but the F shape is the default setting for displaying written content online. (This pattern doesn’t necessarily apply when the home page features a block of text, but it’s typical on home pages dominated by a table of contents or a directory.) The take-away: As you’ll see from studying this site and many others, the F-shaped presentation of content is a pervasive and persuasive scheme of organization. There’s more to it than that, of course and I’ll share more tips in subsequent posts but this outline starts not with a, but with f. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Freelance Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Wether, Weather, WhetherLatin Words and Expressions: All You Need to KnowHow to Treat Names of Groups and Organizations

Definition What Is Community Service

Definition What Is Community Service SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you looking for ways to help others?Are you interested in community service and want to learn more about it? Read this guide to learn what community service is, examples of community service, and how you can find service projects that interest you. What Is Community Service? Community service is work done by a person or group of people that benefits others. It is often done near the area where you live, so your own community reaps the benefits of your work.You do not get paid to perform community service, though sometimes food and small gifts, like a t-shirt, are given to volunteers. Community service can help any group of people in need: children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, English language learners, and more. Itcan also help animals, such as those at a shelter, and it can be used to improve places, such as a local park, historic building, or scenic area as well.Community service is often organized through a local group, such as a place of worship, school, or non-profit organization. You canalso start your own community service projects. Some students are required to complete community service as part of a class requirement in order to graduate high school or become a member of certain organizations, such as the National Honor Society. Adults can also participate in community service as a way to help others or if they are ordered to do so by a judge. What Are Examples of Community Service? There are hundreds of ways to participate in community service, depending on your skills and interests.Some common community service examples include: Working with schoolchildren:Tutoring children after school, collecting school supplies to donate, planting a school garden. Working with senior citizens:Visiting residents of a retirement center, delivering meals to senior citizens, driving them to appointments. Improving the environment:Holding a recycling contest, planting trees, creating a new trail at a nature center. Helping low-income people:Passing out food at a soup kitchen, collecting used clothes to be donated, making first aid kits for homeless shelters. Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. What Are the Benefits of Community Service? There are many benefits of participating in community service, and some of the most important ones are listed below. Have the opportunity to help others:This is often the most important benefit of community service. Participating in it gives you the opportunity to know that you are improving someone's life and making your community better, and you get to see the direct impact of your work. Gain hands-on experience:You can learn a lot of skills while performing community service such as construction, painting, customer service, and medical skills. You can alsoinclude your community service work on your resume. Learn about different careers:Sometimes you can focus your community service in a field you may want to work in down the road. Some examples of this includevolunteering at an animal shelter if you are thinking about becoming a veterinarian, working at a hospital if you want to be a doctor, or volunteering in a museum if you like history.The experience gained from community service can help you get an internship or job in the future, and it also gives you the opportunityto see how much you would really enjoy a particular career. Personal growth:Doing community service has personal benefits as well.It often makes participants more organized, responsible, and compassionate, which are all good qualities to have, as well as qualities that both colleges and employers like to see in applicants. Gain new friends:A final benefit is that youcan meet a lot of great people while doing community service.Community service is often done in groups, so it’s easy to make friends with the people you are working with.You may also become friends with the people you are helping, especially if you volunteer at the same place regularly. Where Can You Find Community Service Projects? Your school or groups you belongto:This caninclude clubs, places of worship, community centers or any other organizations you are a member of. To find community service opportunities, check their website, bulletin board, or newsletter.If you are a student, your school may also have a community service club that makes it easier to get involved. Places where you'd like to volunteer:If you have a specific place where you’d like to perform community service, like a hospital or animal shelter, contact them and ask if they take volunteers. Your community itself:You can also look for opportunities at your town hall, or similar building. Also, check your town’s website or newsletter. Many include a section that lists current volunteer opportunities. What's Next? Did you know that your volunteer work can earn you money for college? It can! Check out the complete list of community service scholarships. Considering doing community service in a foreign country? Check out our guide to see whether you should participate in a volunteer abroad program. Do you want more examples of community service? We have a list of 129 great volunteer ideas! Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: