Writing for the Web

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Writing for the Web
Webdays, Wednesday, February 26, 2003

• Gerry Porter
• Memorial University of Newfoundland
• frigate.ce.mun.ca8080/webwriting
• gporter_at_mun.ca

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Todays Agenda

• Some history
• What is usability and the user experience?
• Writing for the user
• A case study
• Writing for many contexts
• A semi-frivolous example
• Links

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Some history

• In the early days we thought of the web as a
  good, cheap place to put our documents and
  brochures. Every single word.
• Today, there is a word for that type of web site

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Some history

• Shovelware

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Some history

• The only user experience we could relate to was
  the one a user might have on opening and reading
  our brochure.
• Countless web sites tried to replicate the
  experience of encountering print
• or worse, thought the web could be like
  television. (This is still a problem).

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Some history

• The web is mature enough now to be considered a
  medium in its own right, with its own set of
  conventions and best practices. It is not a
  metaphor for something else.

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Usability

• Usability addresses the relationship between
  tools and their users.
• In order for a tool to be effective, it must
  allow intended users to accomplish their tasks in
  the best way possible.
• The same principle applies to computers,
  websites, and other software. In order for these
  systems to work, their users must be able to
  employ them effectively.

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Usability

• Things that detract from a good user experience
• Structure mirrors the organization rather than
  users tasks.
• They look great under lab conditions but fail
  in the real world.
• Writing is not optimized for online reading.
• Most screen space is wasted.
• Developers opt for the cool over the useful.
• They are slow slow slow...

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Writing for the user

• Three main guidelines
• Be succinct.
• Write for scannability.
• Split up long information into multiple chunks.

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Writing for the user

• Be succinct
• Reading online is generally unpleasant.
• It is also about 25 percent slower.
• Rule of thumb write no more than 50 percent of
  the text you would for print (Nielsen).
• 50 percent?! You must be kidding!
• Every word and phrase should have to fight for
  its life -- Crawford Killian.
• Keep sentences short and simple semicolons
  usually dont belong.
• One idea per paragraph. Keep paragraphs to three
  sentences.
• Use shorter words, i.e. lie for recline.
• Avoid circumlocutions (at a later time for
  later).

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Writing for the user

• Write for scannability
• 79 of users always scan a new page very few
  read every word
• Because it is so painful to read text on
  computer screens, and because the online
  experience tends to foster impatience, users tend
  not to read streams of text fully. Instead, users
  scan text and pick out keywords, sentences and
  paragraphs of interest while skipping over those
  parts of the text they care less about.
  -Nielson

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Writing for the user
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Writing for the user

• Write for scannability
• Use two or even three levels of headings.
• Use bulleted lists.
• Use meaningful rather than cute headlines.
• Plain language/inverted pyramid.
• Use humor with great caution, as it can easily be
  taken out of context.

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Writing for the user

• Chunk your information
• Create multiple nodes connected by hypertext
  links.
• Dont segment a long story into multiple pages.
• Create coherent chunks on a certain topic.
• Detailed information of interest to a small
  number of readers can be made available through a
  link without penalizing the rest of your readers.
• Make a printable version available in a single
  file or PDF.

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Writing for the user

• Chunk your information

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Writing for the user

• Chunk your information

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A Case Study

• Jakob Nielsen study at Sun Microsystems
• Original web site contained three pages (white
  papers) and a homepage.
• Rewritten version has eight pages averaging 346
  words, compared with 2,232 in the original.
• Documents were rewritten to be more concise.
• Made scannable by adding headings, bulleted
  lists, tables of contents etc.
• Marketese was removed (words like great and
  overwhelming.
• Buzzwords were removed (paradigm).

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A Case Study

• Jakob Nielsen study at Sun Microsystems
• On testing, the revised version outperformed the
  original on all measures.
• Time it took to complete tasks
• Number of errors generated
• Information retention
• Subjective satisfaction
• Users thought the shorter version contained more
  information
• http//www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/rewriting.h
  tml

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Writing for many contexts

• Write for many levels of interest
• No interest
• they are a burden and should be avoided. If the
  links to your site are clear, you wont waste
  their time and they yours.
• Title only
• The first filter of users unto your site--often
  what shows up in search engines
• One sentence summary
• Main purpose is for links to your page. Used by
  many hubs or directory sites. If you provide one
• You control how it reads
• List compiler can copy and paste

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Writing for many contexts

• Write for many levels of interest
• One Paragraph Summary
• Higher quality version of the one sentence
  summary. It will be used by high quality hubs.
• Gives you a few seconds to influence your reader.
• Major Points
• Use headings to make major points.
• The reader should be able to scroll down and read
  the major points.

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Writing for many contexts

• Write for many levels of interest
• Minor points
• Can be emphasized with boldface font, topic
  sentences or bulleted lists.
• Skimming readers can pick out information easily.
• People re-reading can brush up quickly.
• Scanning to find specific points is simple.
• Detailed interest
• We can finally use a writing style that assumes a
  strong interest.
• Thirst for more information
• Link to more details no not include extra
  information on the page itself.
• Each web page should be very specific.

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Writing for many contexts

• Nathan Wallace
• http//www.e-gineer.com/articles/web-writing-for-m
  any-interest-levels.phtml

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Moby Dick (Original)

• Call me Ishmael. Some years agonever mind how
  long preciselyhaving little or no money in my
  purse, and nothing particular to interest me on
  shore, I thought I would sail about a little and
  see the watery part of the world. It is a way I
  have of driving off the spleen and regulating the
  circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim
  about the mouth whenever it is a damp, drizzly
  November in my soul whenever I find myself
  involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses,
  and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet
  and especially whenever my hypos get such an
  upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
  principle to prevent me from deliberately
  stepping into the street, and methodically
  knocking people's hats offthen, I account it
  high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is
  my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
  philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon
  his sword I quietly take to the ship. There is
  nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it,
  almost all men in their degree, some time or
  other, cherish very nearly the same feelings
  towards the ocean with me.

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Moby Dick (Written for the web)

• I must go to sea when
• I'm depressed or melancholy
• I stop in front of coffin warehouses
• I follow funerals
• I have a powerful urge to knock people's hats off

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Links

• http//frigate.ce.mun.ca8080/webwriting
• useit.com
• Jakob Nielsen
• gooddocuments.com
• A good site from Trellix Corporation
• contentious.com
• e-zine for content creators
• clikz.com
• Kathy Henning articles
• usableweb.com
• many links to writing and usability resources