Delivering Usable Content: How to Write (and Edit) for the Web

Amy Lawless, ORISE

Delivering Usable Content

Anyone who puts content on a site is performing the function of Web editor.

The decisions you make—or don’t make—when you put content on a site affect its usability.

Print writing and editing differ from Web writing and editing.

Audience Analysis

Audience analysis is extremely important.

Balance the needs of the organization with the needs of the user.

Avoid self-promotion.Avoid the desire to teach your

audience how they should think.

Methods of Audience Analysis Analysis by classification: Making

inferences from demographic data.

Example: Audience profiles.

Pros: Cheap & easy. Makes us think about needs of different groups.

Cons: Can lead to stereotyping and faulty inferences.

Methods of Audience Analysis Analysis from user feedback: Gathering

feedback from users prior to development.

Example: Surveys, focus groups. • Redesign: Web statistics, search logs.

Pros: Gives more accurate view of audience.

Cons: $$, time.

Methods of Audience Analysis Ideal method:

Combination of classification and user feedback up front.

Conduct user testing of prototype.

Pros: Comprehensive approach.

Cons: $$, time.

Onscreen Reading

Onscreen reading is slower than print reading.

Web users scan information, while print readers read linearly.

Web users are often in a hurry, have shorter attention span, and have a particular question in mind.

Concise Writing for the Screen

Reduce wordiness.

“Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left” (Krug, Don’t Make Me Think).

Don’t delete information, delete words.

Concise Writing for the Screen Tips for making your writing concise:

Make sentences active.• X “Selected programs will be offered by ORISE…”• ► “ORISE will offer selected programs…”

Reduce nominalizations.• X “The committee made a decision to…”• ► “The committee decided to…”

Combine sentences.• X “The committee made a decision regarding program

offerings. Selected programs will be offered by ORISE beginning in 2003.

• ► “The committee decided to offer selected programs in 2003.”

Concise Writing for the Screen Reduce marketing language (“fluff”), jargon, and in-

house language.

Example: Converting a brochure from print to online.

“Successful labeling systems mirror the thinking and language of a site’s users, not its owners” (Rosenfeld, Information Architecture for the WWW)

• Examples: Link titles, page titles, navigation, levels of headings.

Use hyperlinks for more in-depth information.

Scannable Content

Use short paragraphs (“chunking”).

Google example: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies

Scannable Content

Use levels of headings.

Creates hierarchy of information.

Gives users an overview of information.

Scannable Content

Use bullets.

Google example: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Use white space for balance.

Jakob Nielsen Study: Web Writing Guidelines from study:

Do not use promotional, marketing writing style.

Cut text to create a concise document.

Make text scannable.

Use objective language as opposed to exaggerated (marketing) language.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html

Types of Content Pages

Home Page

Navigation Page

Destination Page

Types of Content Pages

Home Page

Establish consistent navigation.

Avoid the splash page.

Keep content short and above the fold.

Keep content updated, preferably dynamic.

Types of Content Pages

Navigation Page

Continue consistent global navigation.

Include short descriptions with each content area link.

Use white space between link options.

Types of Content Pages

Destination Page

Follow guidelines for concise writing and scannability.

Some content will need to be long.• What are our options?

When a Page Must Be Long…

Users don’t like to scroll, but they will if encouraged.

Judgment call: Long page vs. dividing page into pages.

When a Page Must Be Long… Long, scrolling page

Provide content clues up front.

• Informative levels of headings, link titles with descriptions.

• Provide a summary above the fold to let users decide whether to invest the time.

Example: CNN.com

When a Page Must Be Long… Dividing pages

Dividing a page is different from dividing a document into topics.

New York Times example.

Create a printer-friendly version.

Consider whether your users will be motivated to click through.

When a Page Must Be Long… Internal page links for long content.

Pros:• Useful if items are strongly related.• Acts as table of contents with content.• Helps to chunk long content.

Cons:• Users may forget they are linking internally and

get lost.

Tip: Don’t link too many words.

When a Page Must Be Long… Long documents

Break up documents into separate, logical, linked topics.

Provide a table of contents with short descriptions.

Provide a link to a PDF or printer-friendly version of entire document.

Web Style Guides

Solidify your guidelines for Web content in a style guide.

Style guides promote consistency and quality control.

Distribute the guide to all staff who create information for the Web, design Web sites, or post content.

In Summary

Analyze your audience.

Keep text concise, straightforward, and easy to read.

Use the language of the user.

Make your content scannable.

Give readers content clues, let them decide whether to invest time, and give them options to print long pages.

Create and distribute a style guide.

Bibliography

Usability Adaptive Path

http://www.adaptivepath.com/ The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability (Nielsen)

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ Ask Tog

http://www.asktog.com/ Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity

By Jakob Nielsen. New Rider’s Publishing 1999 Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

By Steve Krug. New Riders Publishing 2000 The Federal Web Content Managers Toolkit

http://www.firstgov.gov/webcontent Usability.gov

http://www.usability.gov/ User Interface Engineering

http://www.uie.com/ World Wide Web Consortium

http://www.w3.org

Bibliography

Writing for the Web Developing Online Content: The Principles of Writing and Editing for the Web

By Irene Hammerich and Claire Harrison. John Wiley & Sons 2001. Envisioning Information

By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press 1990. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press 1983. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press 1997. Web Style Guide

By Patrick Lynch and Sarah Hornton. Yale University Press 2002. http://www.webstyleguide.com/

Web Word Wizardry: A Guide to Writing for the Web and Intranet By Rachel McAlpine. Ten Speed Press 2001.

Writing for the Web By Crawford Kilian. Self-Counsel Press 1999.

Writing for the Web (Jakob Nielsen) http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Bibliography

Information Architecture Argus Center for Information Architecture

http://www.argus-acia.com/ Boxes and Arrows

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/ Google Directory on IA

http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Knowledge_Management/Information_Architecture/

Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web By Christina Wodke. New Riders 2002.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web By Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. O’Reilly 1998.

Practical Information Architecture: A Hands-on Approach to Structuring Successful Websites

By Eric L. Reiss. Addison-Wesley 2000. SIGIA-L (IA mailing list)

http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/