hot tip options

Optional ‘standards’ task
Think about any differences between the articles: for example, is the advice in Nielsen’s paper -- written in 1997 – still current?

I believe all the three sites are basically giving the same advise for writing for the web.

1. start with your best information first, give the critical data first and they might read on if they need to.
   
2. structure the text so it can be quickly scanned (read).
   
3. don't write too much, people don't have time to read epic tales.

However, some differences do start to appear on Jerz site which I believe is due to the natural progression of the web—improvments in graphical user interface and web applications. You just need to look at Nielsen's site to compare how web site design has progressed due to the increased bandwith and more powerful computer processing. Nielsen's site has a 90s feel about it, a garish colour scheme and a design that reflects the web from the past.
Jerz has included some general design advise for page development that is aimed at reducing reader interference by not including distracting page elements well as breif writting methods. Nielson has included information regarding low literacy that crosses over the same boundary.

However, read between the lines, the advise on all three sites are still current. It just shows that when researching, you need to take in multiple view points and get a second opinion to achieve a balanced web site.

Anyway, this is getting too dry again, where's the jam?

email part 6, the future?

I attended a meeting last night at the Canberra Branch of the Australian Computer Society where they held a talk on Web 2.0 and the future direction of email. The speaker, Ralph Dermuth, Director of Technology Sales SW service support, Asia Pacific at IBM Software Group, presented a strong argument that emails are on the way out. He indicated that the group working as a collective community was much stronger than the individual working on email in one-to-one contact. He gave a few examples but the most interesting point he presented was an employee at IBM decided that emails were not an efficient way to combine work and communication, so he decided to stop using emails and created an internal blog (not for public viewing). He used this blog as a communication channel, everyone could see what he was working on and could also contribute to the work as a group. He said the main benefit of this was to generate a community that supported each other. If a question was asked by a contributor in the comment area of the blog, anyone could provide the answer, the support gradually grew which provides a diverse range of suggestion and answers that they claim keeps IBM innovative. Apparently this form of communication was particularly successful when people were away from work.
The speaker then went on to talk about how kids use email, they interviewed a number of them and the most common answer was, they use email to contact their parents, apparently the older generation don't chat or Skype. I feel so old but privileged, I use Skype to keep in contact with my kids at school.
He then went on to say web 3.0, the "meshing" of web 2.0 technologies is the next step in enhancing communication tools. The main problem people encounter today with web 2.0 services such as Flickr, blogging and other web user contribution applications is that they are very isolating, they don't cross over and work together. "Meshing" will bring all these communities together to allow for greater interaction.

It was very interesting presentation but it did leave me feeling that I've missed the boat and was trying to swim in the wake of a ocean liner.

I'm not sure how to reference this as I said it was a presentation and the notes on APA referencing 2008 don't give details for this type but I'll give it a go, see below.

References
Ralph Dermuth, (2009). Enterprise 2.0, presented 31 March 2009, 7pm at the Southern Cross Club, Canberra.

Five hot tips—writing for the web

Hot toast with yummy stuff!

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:

five hot tips:
five tips:
five
Six toastie soldiers with butter and raspberry jam:

1. 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)
2. 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)
3. 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!
4. low literacy level—write to "6th grade" (Nielsen, 2005) level, even the highly literate people appreciate the simple things in life.
5. 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)
6. 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)
   

As I was skimming through the "Writing for Web" on the useit.com site when I remembered my earlier post about this topic on 7 March, see Reflections on Week 1 Point 2, the fact I usually only browse web pages. It confirms that I'm just a statistic.

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

Get a second opinion

Bugger, has all this time been wasted of time?

After reading a few posts on the uni Blackboard by Peter Fletcher and taking his advise to have a read of the great articles on Dave Carr's blog, I became a bit concerned of the way I have approached my studies. This is the the my first unit of study after returning to Uni from a break of ten years and I think I have confused speed with quality—trying to keep up with the Jones to finish the modules as quickly as possible. Reading Dave's blog has been a great eye opener to see that doing just a bit of extra research adds validity to his argument—I think I'll take a leaf out of his book and do the same. Slowly, slowly catch a monkey! This type of writing was also advised in Rebecca Bloods Book, The Weblog Handbook but I can't quote from it because I have already sent it back to the library.

As for a waste of time—no I don't think so, I'm taking it as a learning experience!

So the moral of the story is, I may not blog as often but try to put more convincing content into it.

How to write blog post

Before I get into the details of the next question I would just like to state my views on writing for blogs. I have read Rebecca Blood's book, The Weblog Handbook.
"Write each entry as if it could not be changed: add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry."(Blood 2002, p. 118)

As much as I respect Rebecca's experience, I will reserve the right to edit and rewrite as necessary to make my point clear and concise—I know I do sometimes have a rant, I will uphold her views about not deleting entries.

If you would like to read more about Rebecca, visit her site.

anyway, that's all.

Reference
Blood, R (2002). The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Cambridge: Perseus Publishing.

HTML part 7—more differences

I need to stop thinking about the differences between web and blog pages and move on, so this is the last post on this topic.

The other difference is how the post are deployed, most blogs like this one use a web interface or browsers as the entry system to post blogs. Where as web pages are usually produced through software like Dreamweaver and others. I know there are other web page applications that allow you to create web pages through a browser but they tend to be very regimented and compartmentalised. I'll post sample once I remember their names.

HTML part 6

After thinking a bit harder about the difference between html and blogging, I think the real question should be, "what is the difference between web pages and blogging". After all, behind the facade of the blog entry system—in this case Blogger, is essentially html (and some other code such as Javascript). It's just the process of how to enter the information onto a page.

But answering my question, the real difference between web pages and blogs are tremendous when you consider the style of writing. Blogs are friendly, interesting, rambling, fun and personal (well my blog is) but webs site tend to be static, dull, predictable and hardly ever updated (at least compared to my blog). Remember, I'm talking (or typing) about the words. Sample of a dull web site.

So, all I'm say is there are more difference if you scratch the surface, kick the tyres and smell the roses. Take a second look and you'll see.