1. WWW: Writing for the Wired World September 25, 2002 Darlene Fichter, President Northern Lights Internet Solutions Ltd. www.lights.com

2. Outline 1. Reading & Writing 2. Research Do’s and Don’ts Format, typography, style,... 3. Document Conversion & Standards

3. Outline 4. Writing for:” Search Engines Error Messages 5. Usability Testing Quick and easy techniques 6. Strategies to encourage good writing

4. Challenges Focus on IT – the technology Often key Intranet developers do not have writing experience Programmer, Information architect, Content experts, Intranet manager, Designers As a result: Writing ignored Time spent on top level pages only Time spent on menus/graphics Site vs. Page

5. The Reality Micro-content is as important as the navigation, side menus, design

6. Focus of the Presentation: Research Usability studies Watch and observe 1000’s of users using the web and intranet

7. Reading & Writing Goal is to communicate Strategy Key messages Your audience There is nothing more important than the strategy phase. If you don’t spend time on it, it’s like being on a dark road without your headlights on. Drue Miller, Webmistress Vivid Studios

8. Intranet Audience Focused on getting the job done Diverse Experience Usage patterns Nature of their work – Engineers, Financial analysts, Marketers

9. Novice / Occasional Users* Intimidated by complex menus Like unambiguous structure Apples or Oranges Easy access to overviews that illustrate how information is arranged, maps, FAQs Glossary of technical terms, acronyms, abbreviations Visual layouts & graphics that trigger their memory * Adapted from Patrick Lynch Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide. Yale University Press, 1999.

10. Expert/Frequent Users* Depend on you for speed and accuracy Impatient with low-density graphics that offer only a few choices Prefer stripped down fast loading text menus Specific goals Appreciate detailed text menus, site structure outlines, comprehensive site indexes, well designed search engines Accelerators – ways to bypass the fluff * Adapted from Patrick Lynch Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide. Yale University Press, 1999.

11. International Users Don’t abbreviate dates 3/4/99 March 4 or April 3? Avoid idiosyncratic professional jargon or obscure technical terms on your intro pages Avoid situational metaphors

12. Users Want to Know Who? Tell them WHO is speaking – what department or person created the page. What? WHAT is the page about? Have a title. When? WHEN – time is important in evaluating the worth. Date every page. Especially important in long and complex documents that may be updated. Where? Ideally, WHERE are they – what intranet site or sub-site?

13. Top 10 Things Employees Need to Know* 1. Contact information 2. Internal news about the company 3. Press coverage about the company 4. Press coverage about a topic 5. Company policies 6. Information about competitors 7. Maps 8. Contact information for someone outside the company 9. Latest analyst report 10. Background on unfamiliar company *Alison Head. On-the-Job Research: How Usable Are Corporate Intranets?

14. How Users Read on Screens How do people read on the screen? Top to bottom Left to right Focus first on the micro-content Scroll to the bottom Only after failing - side menu - top menu

15. Reading 25% slower on the screen

16. Research shows: DON’T READ People who are looking for information don't read, they scan. If they have to read instructions or help page, most people will not. Readers understand more when reading less.

17. “Scanability” Create page titles, headings and subheadings Be consistent in how you design the headings Use font and/or color to offset headings

18. Headings & Subheadings Rule of Thumb Emphasis – rule of thumb one at a time. Bold or size. Eyes are tuned to small differences. No need to SHOUT at users.

19. Punch Up the Power of Headlines Make every heading word meaningful Make sure the 1 st headline or title on page summarizes the content Separate sections with 2 nd level headings 3 levels on one page is about all the reader can grasp

20. Use Lists Use lists or tables Use bullets when sequence doesn’t matter and use numbers when it does Lists speed up scanning but slow down reading Use lists when you have key concepts, not full sentences

21. Which is easiest to read? Research says…  Anatomy  Biology  Biotechnology  Chemistry  Microbiology  Physics  Zoology Anatomy Biology Biotechnology Chemistry Microbiology Physics Zoology Anatomy Biology Biotechnology Chemistry Microbiology Physics Zoology

22. Tables Can help organize content for easier viewing

23. Table: Example 1 Books 20 th Century Journals Van Gogh Maps Modernism Impressionism

24. Table: Example 2 Art Format 20th Century Books Modernism Journals Impressionism Maps Van Gogh

25. Table: Example 3 Art20th CenturyModernismImpressionism FormatBooks JournalsMaps

26. Tables Organize your content to be read in columns, not as rows Categorical not alphabetical Do not use table borders to delineate the content – use space and background color

27. Table: Example

28. Users Also Scan for Links Make the links in your text meaningful Make visited and unvisited links contrast with the base font color

29. Example of Scanning Employee Phone Number Search 1. Search by last namelast name 2. Browse employees by office location 3. List all staff, click here

30. Hypertext: Classic Mistakes Overused – everything is a link. Used for key concepts instead of lists or headings based on the belief. Often the link is referenced itself interrupting the reader’s thoughts. To start the tour, click here.

31. Use Links Wisely Hypertext is powerful but can also be distracting Links can help reduce clutter by moving information to separate Web pages But when concentrating on content, people often ignore embedded links

32. Create Links That Don’t Need To Be Followed Use long descriptive links, captions, or headings so users can eliminate choices UIE’s research shows that links with 4 to 9 words are more effectivelinks with 4 to 9 words are more effective

33. Reading Slower: Implications for Style Be succinct Pyramid style (newspaper) Scanning – lists, lists and more lists Looks a lot like PowerPoint

34. Be Succinct Simplify for understanding Use fewer words, smaller words, and simpler words Place words into simple sentence structures Examples: utilize=use construct=build

35. Rule of Thumb: 50%  ½ the word count of conventional writing

36. Invert the Pyramid Newspaper style writing State your conclusion first Summarize most important items first Then get to the details

37. One Idea Per Paragraph Stanford/Poynter study showed that many web visitors will read only the first or second sentences of paragraph Use a strong lead sentence that summarizes content Aka blogs

38. Fragments or Sentences Some debate Poynter seems to imply sentences Imperative style sentences starting with a verb can be very effective

39. Harness Verbs Verbs get your visitors energized Using active verbs also helps improve your credibility Examples: Download Marketing XYZ presentation. Register for XYZ workshop.

40. Reading & Trust Users are judgmental and strongly adverse to marketese, or “happy talk” For your Intranet to be credible, you must be: Current Accurate Objective

41. Things to Avoid “Marketese” Anything that sounds like “advertising” is a complete turn off … the best, the biggest …

42. Objective Avoid superlatives and vague claims Don't boast, exaggerate or self- congratulate Avoid advertising talk such as "greatest thing since..." and "state-of-the-art..." Present facts clearly and users will decide for themselves what is useful Adapted from: http://www.eldis.org/tales/writing/write.htm

43. Objective ≠ Boring Rule of Thumb Be fresh and engaging Write as if you are talking to an “individual”

44. Be Concrete Use concrete words: nouns and verbs Avoid adjectives and adverbs

45. Accurate Make sure your facts are correct and timely. Are your statistics from this year, this quarter? Make sure your links work! If they don’t, it’s sure to annoy users. Date your content.

46. Reading, Scanning & Typography Our eyes look for patterns Control the words, control the layout and the look Make it very easy to see repeating patterns

47. 1. 2. 3.

49. Typography* Consider typography carefully when the page content is mainly text. The use of type will define the page. Use margins to separate areas * This section is based Patrick Lynch Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide. Yale University Press, 1999 * SURL Laboratory studies, http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl

50. Clutter Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information. Edward Tufte, 1997 interview

51. Web & Justified Text Hard to justify to text Left justified the most legible option

52. Centered Left Justified Right Justified

53. Headlines & Justification Left aligned is best Right aligned is okay Centered works well when you can justify text (not recommended on the web) and pairs poorly with a jagged left edge

54. Line Length Many web pages have lines that are too long to read quickly The eye’s acute focus is only about 3 inches wide Key Consideration: Accessibility Controlling the length On the web usually 50 to 70 characters

55. Text Cells Create a table with a 365 pixel wide cell With a 12 point Times New Roman font, you’ll have about fifty characters and 9 to 10 words per line * Adapted from Patrick Lynch Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide. Yale University Press, 1999.

56. Capital & Lower Case Letters UPPERCASE is harder to read We read by recognizing the overall shape of words, rather than parsing letter by letter

57. Tops of Words

58. Best Practices Title case or downstyle typing where you capitalize only the first word

59. Typefaces You need to consider: 1. Legibility on the screen 2. How well it prints if the page or document is lengthy 3. Visitor may override your font choices

60. Screen Arial or Times New Roman fonts at 12 pt are the most legible* *SURL Laboratory usability studies. http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl

61. Screen & Printing Times New Roman is a good choice for legibility on the screen It is compact and is also legible on paper Verdana & Georgia look great on the screen but look large when printed

62. Conventional Choices Serif face such as Times New Roman for body text and sans serif such as Arial or Verdana for headlines

63. Classic Mistakes Fonts are too small Over 40 with bifocals! Failure to recognize that user needs to control fonts

64. Classic Mistakes Too many fonts Page looks like a clown’s pants.

65. Bold, Italics, Color & Underline Bold is effective and works well for section headings. Italics is harder to read. It does stand out. Use for short blocks of text only. Underlined text is out. Looks like a hyperlink.

66. Colored Text In blocks of text, colored words looks like hyperlinks. Avoid this use. Colored Text in Headings Using colored text in headings can be effective

67. What about longer documents? To convert or not convert How will it be used? Chunks or all at once Printing How will your search engine index it? How is it produced? All at once, revised in bits Nature of the content Prescription drug tables

68. What about “Save As”? Standards XHTML Bloated code Short term

69. What if users need to read a long document? Provide a good headline and summary Consider rewriting it (50%) Provide an outline Provide navigation within the document to anywhere else in the document Make it easy to print any section or the whole document

70. Long Documents as HTML Chunk it Present a “model” that the users grasp Offer Internal navigation Next, Previous Back to section Back to T of C

71. To Scroll or Not to Scroll? Early days, scrolling caused fatal errors Scrolling works now provided that the page looks like it continues

72. Above The Fold Hierarchy of Importance Make sure the most important items are above the fold To enhance navigation, link density should be the greatest above the fold

73. Examples: Above/Below

75. Language, Metaphors, Puns and Fun Use the language of your users Ambiguity is often a problem Provide context

76. Classic Mistakes Web sites are full of jargon Organized by internal departments and use internal names Works fine for those that are within the unit Main Intranet site should try to use general terms or use “jargon” followed by an explanation

77. Puns & Fun Humor is tricky. Puns and metaphors often don’t work quite like you expect. If you have an international audience they often don’t translate well.

78. Other Important Writing Tasks 1. Error Messages 2. Search Engines

79. Error Messages Who writes the error messages? Predict points of failure and suggest solutions: 404 Not Found No search results Should stand out from other text Should be comprehensible!

80. Search Engines Crucial audience, often overlooked, is search engines Find out how your search engine ranks:,, metatags, keyword frequency, date Write to satisfy the engine Increase “findability” – consider how users will search for this page

81. Make Your Web Pages Free Standing Many users will arrive at a page from a search result list The page may be the 22 page in the long document or the home page The user needs to know – where they are, what’s up and what’s below

82. Writing How good is it?

83. What really works? Have you ever been at a web development meeting where people debated the size of an image or the color of link or a label for hours?

84. “Cookie” Test Preference or “cookie” testing My Account Your Account Status Chequing Account Login

85. Paper Mockups Take out pages and ask where would you click to do X, Y and Z?

86. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Thinking of changing your site See a good idea Test their page/site with task based testing

87. Task Based Testing Real users doing typical tasks Observers Analysis

88. Summary of Results Participant Task Number 12345MedianMean 160540240 280 2840506012090267.5 3600300240300380 4180300240 5 8058175170 150.6 6420 7180

89. 10 Strategies to Encourage Good Writing 1. Have an editorial style guide for acronyms, names, etc. 2. Mandate site wide look & feel using CSS 3. Lead by example 4. Recognize good writing 5. Encourage key content providers to be observers in usability testing

90. 6. Educate & market Tips, newsletters 7. Reward with “search engine” placement those that “play nice” 8. Set up quality checklists 9. Train new authors 10. Educate manager’s that one of the “W”s in WWW is writing!

91. Secret to Good Wired Writing Observe, test, and learn Test some more Write often and write a lot

92. Thank you! Questions? Darlene Fichter Northern Lights Internet Solutions Ltd. Web Sites Usability & Writing http://www.lights.com/talks/