FIGURE 44.1Attention starts to wane after 10 minutes
People can take a short break and then start over with another 7- to 10-minute
period, but 7 to 10 minutes is about as long as we can pay attention to any one task.
If you’re designing a Web site, you’re probably designing pages that someone views
for a lot less than seven minutes. You’re assuming that someone comes to the page,
looks for a link, and clicks on it. But sometimes you might be adding in other media,
such as audio or video. These media are subject to the 7 to 10 minute rule. TED videos
are typically 20 minutes long, so they’re going over the limit (although they have some
of the world’s greatest speakers, and so might be able to stretch it). Lynda.com does a
good job of keeping most of their online tutorials under 10 minutes.