I have read the suggested information on "writing for the web" and assimilated the data and have compiled MY tips for writing for the web. My tips are a combination of the information from these sites and from my experience in using the web, what I like and how I perceive useful information. In attempting to complete this post I have written and rewritten it a few times, but it keeps coming out so dry, like a piece of "old toast" (Goetzman, Hanks, Zwick & Vardalos 2002), but I want it with butter and raspberry jam. So here are the:
Six toastie soldiers with butter and raspberry jam:
- structured text—use easy to read text that can be quickly scanned, like the leading points of this text so readers can jump to the information they require. (Dennis, 2008)
- best foot forward—give the reader the most useful information first, if they like what they see or want more information they keep reading. Otherwise, like me, I'll bugger off and find something better—lifes too short and too quick these days to hang around. When do we want the information—we want it now! (Ibid)
- low word count—17% users of the web only view a page is 4.4sec (Nielsen, 2008). Writing for the web you need to get the message across without beating about the bush, no procrastinating, be precise in the use of language, be economical with your words, a stitch time time saves something but not this para. "cut the fluff" (Nielsen, 2007) blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It's all Greek to me!
- low literacy level—write to "6th grade" (Nielsen, 2005) level, even the highly literate people appreciate the simple things in life.
- straight to the point—cut the crap, don't get to flowery or overly descriptive with the words, given them the facts without the hype. (Nielsen, 1997)
- chunking—write like your talking to a person you have never met before. Give them all the essential facts of the article in one place, don't let them gather the information from several pages because they will probably miss some vital point. This style may result in some repetitive writing on other pages of similar topics but grouping to information so it can be accessed quickly will save frustration. (Horton, 2001)
The odd thing about writing for the web according to Dartmouth College is you need to take into account if people are going to print the web page and read it offline. My experience this the printed pages tend to be very disjointed and you usually get a lot of extra crap on the side (side bar menus and adds) so I don't do this very often. My extra bit of toastie advise would be, if you expect people to print it, you should supply a fully formatted print version in PDF to download.
Don't just repurpose the text, rewrite it for the approiate media. Maybe that should be points 7.
Reference:
Nielsen, J. (2006). F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
Nielsen, J. (2007). Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill?. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intro-text.html
Nielsen, J. (2005). Lower-Literacy Users. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050314.html
Nielsen, J. (2008). How Little Do Users Read? Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html
Nielsen, J. (1997). How Users Read on the Web. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
Horton, S. (2001). Writing for the Web. Retrieved April 1, 2009 from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/text.html
Dennis, J. (2008). Top 5 Web Conventions (Writing and Design). Retreived April 1, 2009, from http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/e-text/conventions.htm
Goetzman, D. & Hanks, T. (Producers), & Zwick, J. (Director) & Vardalos, N. (Writer) My Big Fat Greek Wedding[Motion picture]. United States: Gold Circle Films
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