I attended an ITLP Writing for the Web course in OUCS yesterday and thought I’d share some tips I picked up.
Before you start your web page or website you should do the following:
- clarify the objective – write this in one sentence
- clarify the audience
- gather relevant information
- think about the structure
When writing material
- the first paragraph on a page needs to be the conclusion; this is the opposite way around to ‘normal’ writing – the attention span of readers on the web is low, you need to snare them and reel them in straight away otherwise the message is lost
- the first sentence of a paragraph should say what the paragraph is about (see above)
- make your page scannable:
- use highlighting for key issues but don’t overdo it, readers often only scan the headings, highlighted text and hyper-links
- use bullet-point lists
- make it concise – web readers have less patience
- keep it short – 15-20 words per sentence
- keep it simple
- cut the waffle
- focus on the action – use active voice not passive voice: “dog bit man” is active “man was bitten by dog” is passive
- focus on the reader – use appropriate language, be positive, remove all ambiguity
- get it right – use correct punctuation and spelling, this gives the reader confidence
- make it look good – use images, subtle use of colour, use sans serif fonts
- when using the WYSIWYG HTML editor in WebLearn always start a page from a template (click the button)
- use meaningful and correctly nested headings (this is also very important for accessibility)
- the first two words of a heading are the most important: use “Diana killed in car crash” not “Car crash kills Diana”
- use content specific words at the start of a heading: use “Hurricanes – general information” not “General information about hurricanes”
- have one idea per paragraph
- have 2-3 sentences per paragraph
- put the conclusion first – make it concise
- make your pages accessible (this is a legal requirement for educational material)
- use consistent terminology
- think about what the reader needs to know not what you want to tell them
- use browser plug-ins to help authoring (or develop the text in Word first but remember to take care when pasting into a WYSIWYG HTML editor – see below)
- if you are developing a series of pages then make sure navigation is included, Dreamweaver will help you do this; breadcrumb menus help here
- use spell check and grammar check
- Usability guru Jakob Neilson’s http://useit.com/ website
- ITLP courses
Using Word to Author text
It is a good idea to prepare your text in Word but do not paste this directly into a WYSIWYG HTML editor, if you do this the resultant web page will be a complete dogs breakfast with all sorts of unwanted mark-up being stored behind the scenes.
When using Word:
- use the spell check and grammar check
- use Tools > Options > Spelling > Readability Statistics to report on use of passive voice
- don’t worry about highlighting, formatting and layout
- copy the text with a mouse and post into a plain text editor such as Notepad
- copy the text from Notepad and paste into the WYSIWYG HTML editor – this will remove all the garbage that Word inserts behind the scenes
- format the text in the WYSIWYG HTML editor
Useful links
Usability
- Visit ‘Usability Guru’ Jakob Neilson’s http://useit.com/ website
- Visit http://usability.gov/
Style Guide
- refer to the University’s style guide
Accessibility
- Special Needs And Disability Act (SENDA)
- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
Grammar and Spelling etc.
- http://www.editcentral.com/gwt1/EditCentral.html
- use the Oxford English Dictionary – the University has a subscription
- read “Eats Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss
- read “Rediscover Grammar” by David Crystal