Today I read an article from Jakob Nielsen "How Little Do Users Read?" and I began thinking about my experiences as a web developer.  The concept of text scanning and that users read between 20 and 28% of the text on a web page feels right to me.  One thing that I have learned and that I always say:

"Users do not read instructions."

This is part of what I call the paradox of content.  There exists the desire to fix usability issues with an application by adding more instructions.  When that doesn’t help, even more instructions are added.  All the time, the user is not even reading them.

The way to fix usability issues is by fixing the real issue with application design, flow, etc. and by not adding more content.

This idea obviously can also be applied to content, information architecture, and web site design. 

Actually, I would like to call it a methodology.  The Paradox of Content Methodology. 

Or maybe I can create a movement.  The Paradox of Content Movement.