Writing for a Usable Web Site

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Writing for aUsable Web Site

• Artie Pajak
• Sydney Donahoe
• Portal Services, ACT

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What will you learn today?

• Strategies to organize your content
• How users behave on the web
• Tips for writing effective web pages

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Organizing your content

• The web gives us freedom to publish whatever we
  want, whenever we want
• We have the responsibility to organize
• If our content isnt organized from the point of
  view of the user, theyll get frustrated and look
  for it somewhere else.

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Organizing for othersYou are the tour guide

• What do visitors want to see most?
• What questions can you anticipate?
• What recommendations can you offer?
• How will they navigate from place to place?
• Remember
• Dont overwhelm them with too much information
• If they leave unhappy, they wont come back

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When is a site poorly organized?
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Who are these sites for?

• Chipotle.com
• Look for something for lunch
• Bosch.com
• Look for a dishwasher

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How well do you know your audience?

• We have identified the userand it is not us.

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Facts about audiences

• Theyre in a hurry
• A user will decide whether or not to stay on your
  page within 4 seconds.
• Example http//www.1amp.com

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Facts about audiences

• Theyre scanners
• Only 16 of web users read pages word for word
• Create scannable text
• highlight keywords
• meaningful sub-headings
• bulleted lists
• one idea per paragraph
• use inverted pyramid writing style
• half the word count of conventional writing

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Nebraska History Facts

• Nebraskas early history is rich and
  fascinating.  Several key individuals, peoples
  and events from long ago helped to advance
  Nebraska toward statehood.
•  
• For centuries before white explorers arrived,
  Native American tribes lived in Nebraska.  Some
  were peaceful tribes, and prospered by farming
  and hunting along the region's plentiful rivers. 
  Although the Pawnees fought with other Indian
  tribes, they were friendly with white settlers.
  Western Nebraska was the home of the Arapaho,
  Cheyenne, and Comanche Indians. These intriguing
  tribes, which built no villages and lived in
  tepees, lived by hunting buffalo.
• In 1662, French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier
  traveled down the mighty Mississippi River to its
  mouth. He claimed large tracts of land
  surrounding the river for France. The fertile
  land, which included Nebraska, was named
  "Louisiana," in honor of French King Louis XIV. 
  During the 1690s and early 1700s, French traders
  and trappers enthusiastically made the Louisiana
  region their home.
• Spain objected to France's presence in the
  regions, which Spain also claimed. In 1720, a
  Spanish expedition of 45 soldiers bravely marched
  into Nebraska, intending to remove the French. In
  1763, at the close of the Seven Years' War in
  Europe, France gave up all claims east of the
  Mississippi River to England and west of the
  Mississippi to Spain. However, French fur traders
  continued to flourish in Nebraska.  In 1800,
  French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to
  return the Louisiana Territory to France. He then
  sold the entire territory, which included
  Nebraska, to the United States in 1803!
• The first American expedition to visit Nebraska,
  in 1804, was led by the distinguished Meriwether
  Lewis and William Clark.  They traveled up the
  picturesque Missouri River and explored the
  state's eastern edge.

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Nebraska History Facts

• Native Americans, Spanish, French and American
  explorers, and several key events all helped to
  advance Nebraska toward statehood.
•  
• Native Americans
• For centuries before white explorers arrived,
  Native American tribes lived in
  Nebraska. Although the Pawnee fought with other
  tribes, they were friendly with white
  settlers. Western Nebraska was also home to the
  following Indian tribes who lived in tepees and
  hunted buffalo
• ? Arapaho
• ? Cheyenne
• ? Comanche
•  
• Spanish and French Explorers
• In 1662, French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier
  claimed land surrounding the Mississippi River
  for France. During the 1690s and early 1700s,
  French fur traders and trappers moved to the
  region.
•  
• Having their own claims in the region, Spain
  objected to France's presence. In 1763, at the
  close of the Seven Years War, France gave up
  claims east of the Mississippi River to England
  and west of the Mississippi to Spain. But French
  fur traders continued to operate in Nebraska. In
  1800, French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte forced
  Spain to return the Louisiana Territory. He then
  sold the entire territory, which included
  Nebraska, to the United States in 1803 as part of
  the Louisiana Purchase.
•  
• Americans and the Great Migration
• The first American expedition to visit Nebraska
  was led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in
  1804. They traveled up the Missouri River and
  explored the state's eastern edge.

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Facts about audiences

• They have no patience for glitz
• They click off Flash demos (Skip Intro)
• They are annoyed by too much movement
• They close pages that take too long to download

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Facts about audiences

• Navigation or Search
• Some will find your content through navigation
• Some will find your content through search
• You have to plan for both ways

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Facts about audiences

• They dont care about you
• Most people have absolutely no interest in links
  such as What we do and Who we are. They only
  care about what you can do for them.
• Gerry McGovern

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How do you organize to make it easier for people
to find things?

• Lets look at user behavior
• Think about how we look for things we need
• Think about how all animals look for things they
  need

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Youre on the hunt

• You come to a place
• Your senses are on alert
• Youre scanning
• Looking for a clue
• And then

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Youre on the hunt

• you find something interesting

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Designing for the Scent of Information

• Just like a fox in a forest, users will be most
  successful when they pick up a strong scent.

• -- Jared Spool
• User Interface Engineering
• http//www.uie.com

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How does Scent design differ?

• Conventional design
• Home page, sections, navigation
• Structure before content
• Scent design
• Start with content
• Determine trigger words
• Group related trigger words
• Put them on appropriate pages

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Scent design

• Asks the following questions
• Why are users coming to the site?
• Which page is most important to the user?
• How will users find this page?
• What are the users trigger words?
• Where are they most likely to look for those
  words?
• Focus on content leads to a structure that
  reflects the users priorities

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How to design for scent

• Pages
• Links
• Words

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Designing for scentPages

• Each page should do one of two things
• Contain target content that users look for
• Emit a stronger scent

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Designing for scentLinks

• Make sure links and categories clearly describe
  what they lead to
• (non-example Academic Offerings)
• Blue and underlined still mean click me
• Longer links say more
• Which of these links is better?
• Disposal Guidelines
• Waste Disposal Guidelines
• Biohazardous and Medical Waste Disposal
  Guidelines

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Designing for scentWords

• Trigger words are the words and phrases that
  cause users to click
• Avoid using Miscellaneous or General Information
• Use the language that your users use
• Users search when they cant find their trigger
  words

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Designing for scentMyth busters

• Users will scroll
• As long as design elements dont block them
• Example Sprint
• Users will click through multiple screens
• As long as the path has a strong scent and they
  are getting closer to their goal
• Example Sears

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At some point, youve got to START WRITING

• Ack!
• Argh!
• _at_!

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What kind of page is it?

• A few common page types
• Information 1, 2
• How-to (Blink)
• Checklist (TritonLink)

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Some new page types for Blink and TritonLink

• Landing page
• New look for menu pages
• New page types in design
• Department
• Home
• Faculty

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Formatting

• Information-carrying words up front and in bold
• Paragraphs in logical order
• Bullet lists consistent in structure and
  punctuation
• How to Safely Lift and Carry

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Words

• 25 words per sentence maximum
• 50-75 characters in a line
• About 50 words per paragraph
• 1 or 2 syllables, not 3 or 4 or more
• Active verbs
• Nouns you can see.

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Resources

• Books by Donald Norman
• Content Critical Book by Gerry McGovern and Rob
  Norton
• Jacob Nielsens Alertbox
• Portal Services Publishing Guidehttp//blink.ucsd
  .edu/go/publish

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Thank you!