Writing for the web

By Cucumber, January 14th, 2010

It’s an important part of design and communication that often gets over looked, left to the last minute and squeezed in at the end. It’s said that content contributes to 50% of the usability of a site, poorly written content making a site unusable and which no amount of good design can rescue. Useit.com (http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/ has some great resources covering many topics, from how to write inverted pyramid style to revealing how little users read.

Posted in Education, Technology | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Writing for the web”

Gerard van de Ven says:

January 18, 2010 at 11:20 am

Thanks for sharing that Shane. I guess there is something useful in here for everybody.
Chris Heath says:

January 18, 2010 at 2:26 pm

I agree. Well written content is critical to a web site’s usability.

If writers charged per page (or word) of content, there would be a lot more content out there. Consequently, nobody would bother using the internet. Being verbose and waffly is a sure-fire way of sending potential customers to your competitors’ sites.

On the flip side, you mustn’t sacrifice clarity for conciseness. If you are too concise, clarity can be lost, and with it, the message that you are trying to get across.

http://www.useit.com is a great site. I particularly like the article called “First Rule of Usability – Don’t Listen to Users”.
Susan Wylie says:

January 28, 2010 at 1:29 pm

Not to forget the excellent NZ suppliers of web writing training – http://www.contented.com/index.php

This course provides good training and is recommended, particularly for larger organisations where staff may have to be more focused on reducing reports and other complex documents into webpage format that is interesting and easy to find. And the website has good advice for NZ writers.
Max Patmoy says:

February 25, 2010 at 7:10 am

This is an even better site which offers a huge range for the online writer and the online newspaper industry. http://www.newsu.org/