How? Type part of a sentence in the search form, then sit back and wait for the concerns of the people to be revealed.

Are politicians…

Celebrities? Psychopaths? Corrupt? Drug tested?

Does David Cameron…

Smoke? Dye his hair? Where does David Cameron go at night?

Nick Clegg

Atheist. 30 women. Nuff said.

Is Gordon Brown…

A freemason? A liar? And erm, some others

Is Parliament…

Effective? Democratic? Now an irrelevant institution?

Is the treasury…

Printing money?

Is the government…

Hiding aliens? Making you fat? Watching my computer?

Do government…

Assassins exist? Officials pay taxes?

Does democracy…

Work? Exist? Encourage terrorism?

In the past, we’ve added Google Analytics to Luminis to track the interactions, but never managed to fully segment user roles. Until now.

Out of the box, Luminis has roles such as staff, student, faculty, ProspectiveStudent etc. Users can have one or more of these roles and other custom roles too. If we could capture all the roles and pass them onto Google Analytics, then we’d be able to fully segment the user types and gain a better understanding of how each segment uses Luminis.

This post aims to show how this is possible in just 3 steps:

1. XSL: Edit nested-tables.xsl to add a custom meta tag for the luminis roles
2. Javascript/jQuery: Read the custom meta tag and set a custom variable in Google Analytics
3. Google Analytics: Create custom segments to view traffic for specific Luminis roles

Edit nested-tables.xsl and add a custom meta tag to the header

We’ve seriously hacked at nested-tables.xsl over the years, so our version of the file is likely to be different to most. The main aim here is to find the html > head section and add a custom meta tag:

<!-- Dump all roles into a single meta tag as a comma separated value -->
<meta name="luminis.role">
   	<xsl:attribute name="content">
		<xsl:for-each select="//layout/cp:cpInfo/cp:cpProperty[@name='pdsRole']/child::*">
			<xsl:value-of select="concat(., ',')" />
   		</xsl:for-each>
   	</xsl:attribute>
</meta>

Read the custom meta tag and set a custom variable in Google Analytics

Our implementation of Google Analytics is a little complex, but this example I’ve based on the standard Google Analytics example code.

Using Javascript (infused with jQuery in our case), we can read the custom meta tag and set a custom variable.

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">

	window.onload = function(){
		try
		{
			var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXX-XX");

			if (typeof $('meta[name=luminis.role]').attr("content") == 'string')
			{
				pageTracker._setCustomVar(
				     1,                                                // This custom var is set to slot #1 of the 5 available in GA
				     "luminis.role",                                   // The name acts as a kind of category for the user activity
				     ','+$('meta[name=luminis.role]').attr("content"), // The value of the custom variable (starting with a comma)
				     2                                                 // Sets the scope to session-level
				);
			}
			pageTracker._trackPageview();
		}
		catch (err) {}
	}

</script>

According to the documentation, it’s important to set the custom variable before tracking the page view.

Create custom segments to view traffic for specific Luminis roles

Sign in to Google Analytics and view your normal website reports.
Click on Advanced segments | Create a new advanced segment

Create a new segment where…
Custom variable (Value 1) contains ,staff,
AND
Custom variable (Value 1) contains ,faculty,

Note the surrounding commas – we’re using them as role delimiters.

Give the segment a name e.g. “Luminis roles: staff AND faculty”"

All done, but have patience

Your custom segment is now available from the advanced segment drop-down:

Custom variables seem to take longer to filter through to Google Analytics than normal data such as page views. So come back in a couple of days and try out your new advanced segment.

Update (12 April 2010):
Shortly after I published this post, the Google Analytics blog posted their webinar on Google Analytics custom variables.

Also, if you’re interested in creating advanced segments from custom variables, I’ve posted ayoutube video that steps through the process.

I recently started building Confluence plugins. The first one being my Google Analytics plugin for Confluence. This post outlines my “journey” into Confluence plugin development. It documents a beginner’s pitfalls when developing with the Atlassian Plugin SDK. Hopefully others can learn from, or at least laugh at my mistakes.

Where I was starting from:

• No experience of maven
• No understanding of how Confluence plugins work or how they are written
• Some experience of Java – Mainly uPortal/Luminis portal development for the University of Nottingham and some consultancy work e.g. for Astra Zeneca, Documentum and 3Com
• No experience of unit testing or integration testing in Java – oh dear
• I prefer UI work to real programming

Initial failure

I tried to setup a development environment for plugin development using Atlassian’s documentation a little before the beta release of version 3 of the Atlassian Plugin SDK. It was a pain. This was no fault of the documentation — it was really just to do with my schedules and available time to experiment.

The problem was two-fold:

1. I’d not done this before, so was clueless to what was involved
2. The setup was a complete ball-ache considering the time restraints

I was well aware of point 1 and the pain it was likely to cause. Point 2 seemed to be the old chestnut – install and configure the exact correct versions of the software you need in the correct sequence, then start.

Wait. I don’t know what that means, see point 1. Yes, I’ve got maven installed on my MacBook! Woo! Let’s go. Hang on, it’s not the correct version. Where do I get that from?

In many ways, it reminded me of my initial experience of building and installing Apache 1.x on Solaris SPARC boxes back in the day:

cd /path/to/apache/source; make; make install;
Oh. Wrong version of make. Where do I get that from? Hmmm.
Install correct version of make. Damn, make needs the correct version of gcc. Where do I get that from?
And so on. Moving further and further away from the problem you’re trying to solve.

So, I stopped there. No shiny Confluence plugins for me. I’ve got plenty of other things to do anyway thank you very much.

Reboot

Then Atlassian released the Plugin SDK beta and all this nastiness was removed. Everything you need to build an Atlassian plugin was bundled in one place. Refreshing. All commands have been wrapped and so are prefixed with atlas- to prevent conflict with whatever else you’ve got installed.

For the impatient, this really drives down the barriers to entry for plugin development.

Following the documentation for installing the Plugin SDK was a piece of cake. It just worked.

• Download
• Unzip
• Add some environment settings. Edit ~/.profile and add:

  PATH=$PATH:.
  PATH=$PATH:$HOME/
  PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
  PATH=$PATH:$HOME/atlassian-plugin-sdk/atlassian-plugin-sdk-3.0-beta3
  PATH=$PATH:$HOME/atlassian-plugin-sdk/atlassian-plugin-sdk-3.0-beta3/bin
  export PATH
  

• Start building a plugin

Starting out to build your Atlassian plugin is documented here. It’s a fairly straightforward set of instructions.

You start by doing something like this:

mkdir ~/projects/davidsimpson.me/
mkdir ~/projects/davidsimpson.me/confluence
cd  ~/projects/davidsimpson.me/confluence

atlas-create-confluence-plugin
...
...
...
When prompted
Define value for groupId: : me.davdsimpson.confluence.plugins
Define value for artifactId: : googleanalytics
Define value for version:  1.0-SNAPSHOT: :
Define value for package:  me.davdsimpson.confluence.plugins: :
Confirm properties configuration:
groupId: me.davdsimpson.confluence.plugins
artifactId: googleanalytics
version: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
package: me.davdsimpson.confluence.plugins

Then type…

cd googleanalytics
atlas-run

…and sit back. If maven doesn’t fall over for lack of memory at this point, you’re laughing. Go away, have a beer or two. This may take some time.

On your return, maven will hopefully have finished dragging all manner of nonsense from Australia and installed a working copy of Confluence, together with an empty plugin onto your computer. Nice. Next, write some code.

I like to run before I can walk. It seems like much more fun to attempt something that’s harder. You do fall over a lot more often though. So rather than some kind of silly little hello world or equivalent plugin, my first plugin was an integration of Google Analytics with Confluence using the Google Analytics API to fetch data from Google. It requires some additional JARs from Google.

Google doesn’t have a public maven repository to my knowledge and I’d no idea how to get these JARs added into maven. Luckily, people had already written about parts of this, so I put 2 and 2 together.

Add Google Analytics JARs to maven:

atlas-mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=com.google.gdata \
    -DartifactId=gdata-core \
    -Dversion=1.0 \
    -Dpackaging=jar \
    -Dfile=/path/to/gdata-core-1.0.jar \
    -DgeneratePom=true

atlas-mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=com.google.gdata \
    -DartifactId=gdata-analytics \
    -Dversion=2.0 \
    -Dpackaging=jar \
    -Dfile=/path/to/gdata-analytics-2.0.jar \
    -DgeneratePom=true

atlas-mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=com.google.collect \
    -DartifactId=google-collect \
    -Dversion=1.0 \
    -Dpackaging=jar \
    -Dfile=/path/to/google-collect-1.0-rc3.jar

Edit the Project Object Model (POM) to add the dependencies

Edit the pom:

vi ~/projects/davidsimpson.me/confluence/googleanalytics/pom.xml

Add this bit to the end of the dependencies node:

<!-- Add Google Analytics dependencies: -->
   <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.gdata</groupId>
       <artifactId>gdata-core</artifactId>
       <version>1.0</version>
   </dependency>
   <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.gdata</groupId>
       <artifactId>gdata-analytics</artifactId>
       <version>2.0</version>
   </dependency>
<dependency>
	<groupId>com.google.collect</groupId>
	<artifactId>google-collect</artifactId>
	<version>1.0</version>
</dependency>

Next, fire up your IDE

My chosen IDE is IntelliJ IDEA.

• Open the pom.xml in IntelliJ IDEA (File | Open project)
• Override/set the maven home directory:

  /Users/davidsimpson/atlassian-plugin-sdk-3.0-beta3/apache-maven

• Set the JDK for build as 1.5 or 1.6
• Start editing the plugin

Hiccups

It’s not all straightforward. Here’s some of the annoyances that I came across.

Maven needs more memory

I needed more memory for maven. Not really a problem – append to ~/.profile:

MAVEN_OPTS=-Xmx512m
export MAVEN_OPTS

Annoying warnings on atlas-run

I noticed this on running atlas-run – it probably shouldn’t be there:

[WARNING] Using platform encoding (MacRoman actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!

Of course, someone has already blogged about it — Red Leopard — and it’s easily fixed by editing the POM to add the correct encoding.

<properties>
    <confluence.version>3.0.2</confluence.version>
    <confluence.data.version>3.0</confluence.data.version>

    <!-- Fix for MacRoman warnings on build -->
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
</properties>

Now, we have no nasty warnings.

The macro browser icon

I love the Macro Browser in Confluence. It’s a nice step forward in the evolution of the UI. So as a result, I wanted my macro to have a shiny icon in the macro browser. That damn Macro Browser icon ate up several hours of my life. Looking at the comments on the documentation page, several other people have had a whole load of fun getting their pretty icon to show up too.

The macro browser icon: What we're aiming for

Could I get the Macro Browser to show my plugin’s icon. No. I followed the documentation. It did not work. I looked again. This time I really paid attention. Was it my fat fingers? Was I just being stupid? (Probably.) I ignored this for a while — maybe it would be better after a night’s sleep.

Everything seemed to work a whole lot better when I dropped the beta and moved to version 3.0.2 of the Plugin SDK.
Note: I had to update my ~/.profile to point to the new version of the SDK and update the references to maven in Intelli-J at this point.

I also followed a different tack on getting the macro browser icon to work

• Find a macro that has a custom icon in the macro browser
• Go to the Atlassian public subversion repository and browse to the source for that macro plugin.
• Copy the exact syntax from the atlassian-plugin.xml and paste into your macro’s own atlassian-plugin.xml
• Name the icon exactly the same as in the atlassian-plugin.xml and put it in the correct place in the directory structure

I’m not entirely sure whether it was the copy and paste approach that helped or moving away from the beta. It works now, so I’m not going to loose sleep on why.

Adding a configuring UI to the plugin

My plugin needed to store Google account credentials and display a list of Google Analytics sites, so you can choose the correct profile. How do you do that? Hmmm. Go back to the documentation. It wasn’t nearly detailed enough for my liking, so time to vent a little.

Again, it seemed the best way to learn was to find a plugin that has a similar kind of configuration to that you’re hoping for and start appropriating the code.

Unit testing and integration testing

This is a good idea. Period. Did I have a clue how to do it for Confluence? Of course not.

Again, the community helped out. Atlassian partners at Adaptavist, Comala Technology and Customware have written about this:

• Integration Testing of Confluence Plugins by Bo Wang
• Unit testing a Confluence Action by Edward Robertshaw
• Unit testing a Confluence Macro by Edward Robertshaw
• Confluence plugin integration testing by Roberto Dominguez

Browsing around the Atlassian public subversion repository was also a help. I’ve got to say that I’m an easy convert to testing. It just makes sense.

Update (2010-05-04): A nice feature of the SDK is running or testing your plugin against different versions of the product. This is straightforward:

# Integration tests for different versions
atlas-integration-test -v 3.0
atlas-integration-test -v 3.1
atlas-integration-test -v 3.2
# Run different versions of Confluence
atlas-run -v 3.0
atlas-run -v 3.1
atlas-run -v 3.2

Wrapping up

After a good deal of stumbling around, it turns out that I can write a Confluence plugin after all. Everything started working a lot better after I updated from the beta version, but that could just be coincidence. The documentation could be a little better to help the uninitiated but it was equally my fault for not learning to walk first. There is a lot of good information, but it is spread over a few different spaces.

My next step was to get the plugin added to Atlassian Plugin Exchange. It took a little while to get this done — maybe that’s best saved for a follow up post. The plugin is now available on Atlassian Plugin Exchange. I hope other people get some use out of it.

Something that bugs me in Confluence is the way that attachments are shown. The default view is a big table with just about all the information related to each attachment.

This is great if you want all this detail, but I’m a simple soul with simple needs.

Krug suggested “Omit needless words”. In this case, it’s more of “Omit needless metadata”.

Less is more

Enter {list-attachments} – a user macro that dispenses with the excess. It displays an unordered list with the filename, file size and last modified date. If there’s a comment for the attachment, this is displayed in the link text rather than the filename.

This is a really straightforward view of the attachments on the page.

How do I install {list-attachments} ?

It’s pretty easy. As a Confluence administrator, go to Confluence Admin | User Macros and click on Create a User Macro.

Macro name: list-attachments

Template:

## MACRO: list-attachments
## View page attachments in a simple list
## USAGE: {list-attachments}

#set ($attachmentsList = $content.getLatestVersionsOfAttachments())

#applyDecorator("page")
    <div class="listAttachmentsDiv">
        #if ($attachmentsList.size() > 0)
			<ul>
		        #foreach( $attachment in $attachmentsList )
					<li>

						## Display the file type icon:
			            <a name="$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.urlEncode($page.title))-attachment-$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.urlEncode($attachment.fileName))">#parse ("/pages/includes/attachment_icon.vm")</a> 

						## The link:
						#if ($attachment.comment && $attachment.comment.trim().length() > 0)
							## Display the comment as the link text instead of the filename
							<a href="$generalUtil.htmlEncode("${req.contextPath}${attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion}")">$generalUtil.htmlEncode($attachment.comment)</a>
						#else
							## Display the filename as the link text
							<a href="$generalUtil.htmlEncode("${req.contextPath}${attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion}")">$generalUtil.htmlEncode($attachment.fileName)</a>
						#end

    					## Display the file size:
						<span class="fileSize">$attachment.niceFileSize</span>

						## Display the last modification date
						<span class="lastModDate">$attachment.lastModificationDate</span>
					</li>
				#end
			</ul>
		#else
			## Display nothing
		#end
    </div>
#end

Accept the defaults for the other fields, then click on Save

To call the macro in the page type: {list-attachments}

The result:

For extra points

If you want to change the way the items are displayed, add some CSS to the global stylesheet, e.g

.listAttachmentsDiv a { font-family: helvetica, sans-serif; }
.fileSize, .lastModDate { font-size: 90%; color: #999;}

To see even less, comment out (add ## at the start of the line) lines 27 & 30 in the user macro to remove the file size and last modification date.

Now you’re left with a simple list of links.

It shows pageviews for an Atlassian Confluence wiki on a space by space basis.

You’ll need your own copy of Confluence hooked up to Google Analytics for the demo to work, so I’ve done a video demo too – no sound, sorry.

Confluence & Google Analytics Javascript API from David Simpson on Vimeo.

The main problem for listing data on a space by space basis with the Google Analytics API is that there isn’t an equivalent to the Content Drilldown report. My workaround was to get the 500 most popular pages, then using regular expressions, get the spacekeys, remove duplicates and sort alphabetically. Not particularly elegant, but hey.

Next Steps

It’s a nice proof of concept, but I’d like to display this information – without the authentication and authorisation step – to users without access to Google Analytics.
e.g. To the owners/administrators of Confluence spaces.

The next step will be to rewrite in Java and embed the data and some charts directly into Confluence with a custom written macro.

Adding custom segments to Google Analytics from David Simpson on Vimeo.

There is no need and it is helping destroy the planet.

Verdana takes up about 19% more horizontal space than Arial. So a switch away from Verdana could reduce your paper costs by up to 19%. For further savings, switch to duplex printing at the same time.

If you need a font designed for readability, try the granddaddy of readable fonts – Helvetica – or at a pinch Arial.

Back in the olden days of the interweb, we didn’t have nice big screens with fantastical resolutions. We didn’t have nicely anti-aliased, easily readable text. To fit enough information on a small screen, the fonts used were blocky and tiny. At small font sizes, text displayed in Arial typeface would huddle together and become difficult to read. Not Verdana, with it’s “generous width and spacing”. It was open and easy to read. Soon everyone wanted a bit of the action. All the sans-serif web pages started using Verdana it spread like a virus.

Roll forward to the present and it seems that 1200 pixels is now the minimum screen width that people have. With larger screens, the font can be larger and so easier to read. We no longer need such generosity in our width and spacing. A return to classic typography is due.

Actions

To make a difference, check through the list below and help eradicate Verdana font from the planet.

1. Do not use Verdana in your web pages

   • Simply don’t use it. Replace it with Helvetica or it’s bastard offspring Arial
   • Educate your clients why its bad
   • Change corporate identity guidelines. If you really, really, really, really have to use it on a website, have a print stylesheet which uses something else more elegant

     Here’s how to add a separate print stylesheet:

     			<link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="print"  />
     			

     Here’s the basic content for print.css:

     			body { font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; }
     			

     Helvetica before Arial please. That’s the correct order.

2. Do not use Verdana in reports, presentations etc

   Verdana was designed as a screen font for small displays. It just doesn’t look good in printed material or displayed big on projectors.

3. Remove it from your computer

   • Remove it from your computer
   • Remove it from all computers in your organisation
   • Make sure that your base install image for new PCs in your organisation does not have the Verdana font included.

Further Reading

• Web Matters – Why you should avoid Verdana
• Text Font Readability Study
• Channel Verdana

This wiki markup snippet should help. It tabulates:

• Overall activity
• Page creations
• Page Updates
• Page views
• Page Popularity

h1. This Week's Wiki User Activity Charts</code>
 
h2. Overall
 
{topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=create,update,view|display=icon,title,count}
 
h2. Breakdown
<code>
|| Page Creation || Page Updates || Page Views || Page Popularity ||
| {topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=create|display=icon,title,count} | {topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=update|display=icon,title,count} | {topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=view|display=icon,title,count} | {popular:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=view|display=icon,title,count} |

Results

Here’s a screenshot of the resulting page – complete with made up names.

Monitor page creations, views, updates and popular pages

Please note: Building this page can be rather resource intensive as it queries pretty much the whole database to generate the statistics shown!

Related

• Confluence: Who’s Updating What? – Email notification

You could have a look at the Global Activity page on Confluence, but this might confuse matters.

You’ll get to see graphs, but what do they really mean? The Global Activity statistics are at best very basic.

Better still, install Google Analytics and you’ll have a much more accurate idea of what’s going on. Best of all, it’s really easy to install.

How to install Google Analytics on Confluence

I’m assuming (for my sake) that you already know your way around Google Analytics.

In Google Analytics

Login to Google Analytics and add a new website profile

The settings will roughly mirror those in the screenshot below

Make sure that you check “Do Track Site Search” against Site Search. Add queryString as the Query Parameter. This will allow you to monitor who is searching for what.

Update (2009-11-12)
Edit the Search Settings configuration like in the image to see search terms grouped by spaceKey in the internal search categories reports. Further details why can be seen here

A screenshot of the Site Search Setting section

The top search terms will suggest either content that’s missing from the site, or something that is not easily found in the current information architecture. Either way, tracking this and acting on the findings should improve the user experience.

In Confluence

Login to Confluence as an administrator and add the GA tracking javascript code to the end of the page body…

Navigate to:

Dashboard | Administration | Look and Feel | Custom HTML

Click on the “Edit” button and add the javascript sample (with your tracker code) to the “At end of the BODY” section:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try
{
	var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X");
	pageTracker._trackPageview();
}
catch(err)
{}
</script>

Results

We’ve not had this running long, but it seems to work just fine. As Confluence creates pages with distinct titles, its fairly easy to track how people are using the system.

Screenshot of Content by Title report:

Screenshot of Site Search Terms report:

Related Posts (Updated)

• 4 Useful Tips on Google Analytics Reporting for Confluence
• Announcing: Google Analytics plugin for Confluence

To find out which of the UK’s national newspapers has the best readability, I chose a news story at random that was recently covered in each of the newspapers.

I tested the readability of each newspaper’s article using my own online readability testing tool.

The news articles tested

• Times
  Wildcat strikes over foreign workers spread across Britain
  by Nico Hines, Andrew Norfolk and Christine Buckley.
  Test readability
• Guardian
  Strikes spread across Britain as oil refinery protest escalates
  by Audrey Gillan, Andrew Sparrow and agencies.
  Test readability
• Independent
  Refinery strikes spread across UK
  by Press Association.
  Test readability
• Daily Mail
  Mass walkouts across Britain as anger grows over influx of foreign workers
  by DAILY MAIL REPORTER.
  Test readability
• The Sun
  Oil refinery strikes spread
  by STAFF REPORTER.
  Test readability

I only tested the readability of the news article – not the whole page – to prevent the scores being skewed by e.g. the navigation system on each page.

It’s worth noting that the articles were tested on the day the story broke. It seems that most of, if not all of the stories have been edited since. Often the title of the piece has changed. In some cases, the authors have changed or since been identified.

Readability Indicators Used

Scores were given for the following readability indices:

• Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade level Score
• Gunning-Fog Index
• SMOG Index
• Coleman-Liau Index
• Automated Readability Index

Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease is a 0-100 scale where a higher score gives a greater ease of reading.
All the other indicators are based on US school grade level system e.g. a score of 4 suggests 4 years of schooling is needed to understand the article. A score of 10 suggests that a 15-16 year old would understand the text.

Results

Readability

Interpretation

• The Times, Guardian and The Sun are well matched for readability
• Each is rated as top for 2 out of the 6 indicators measured
• The Independent is consistently worst for readability – the scores suggest a better/longer education is needed!
• The Daily Mail is in the middle ground throughout

Text Statistics

Interpretation

The Independent provides the most in-depth analysis.

• It also uses the most “complex words” – with 3 or more syllables
• You’ll need to print this out and sit with a cup of tea somewhere.

The Sun is very concise and to the point.

• You’ll be able to quickly scan through the article on the website in a glance
• It’s written in a style that suits the web.

And the winner is…

The Sun!

• The easy to read, bite sized format is perfect for use on the web
• They got it right first time!
• Other newspapers have since largely corrected their less readable text. Noticeably the Daily Mail. Their article now scores highly for readability

One last thing: Though this can be perceived as a glowing endorsement of The Sun, it’s just a bit of fun. I prefer to get my news from the BBC News website and I know, I’ve not even bothered to compare the readability of their article.

Test the readability of this post!