Here are a few things I found useful as I skimmed the book by Janice Redish titled "Letting go of the words." I think these are useful as I am about to rise by subject and course pages. I think I am going to have in my head the image of the slightly impatient student at the reference desk--when you know you need to be quick and to the point or he/she is just going to leave.
Do you have any tips or tricks you use when you write/edit your pages?
- People come to web sits to satisfy goals, to do tasks, to get answers to questions.
- They don't read much much, especially before they get to the page that has the information they want.
- Even on information pages, they skim and scan before they start to read
- They want to read only enough to meet their needs
- Write so that busy people can grab the information they need and go on to whatever they need to do next
- We all interpret as we read.
- Break up large documents.
- Give people what they need
- Cut! Cut! Cut! And Cut Again!
- Start with key point. Write in inverted pyramid style
- Writing informally is not "dumbing down"!
- Talk to your site visitors
- When you update pages, revise them to be better writing for the web.
- Break up text with headings
- Use action phrase headings for instructions
- Put your site vistors' words in the headings
Do you have any tips or tricks you use when you write/edit your pages?
