Writing

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Aaargh! Rewind! Does your website have too much ‘guff’?

Rachel McAlpine wrote about visiting a friend in the middle of major hospital renovations, and points out how websites should be:

[the guide] did not say Welcome to Wellington Hospital. He did not spout a random range of services offered. He did not urge me to come and live in wonderful Wellington. He did not tell me how many hospitals were run by the Capital and Coast District Health Board. He did not tell me to how put one foot in front of the other or press the elevator button. Just like a good search engine, he took me straight to the ward I needed.

Read more at Contented: More like a building than a book.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Over at Thinking Outside the Book Maria Langer wrote an excellent article about ebooks.

This is my comment and response. Please read her article first.

I think the ‘problem’ of ebooks is particularly acute in the area of technical writing — software how-to manuals and the like — more than it is for fiction.

Information in the right place and format

When a person is using software they are already at the computer, looking at the screen. More and more often they are using a laptop and may be in a place where also using a printed book is inconvenient or impossible.

If I’m using Program X and want to check how to use fancy-feature Y I’d much rather open up Preview, search for ‘widgettybob’ (a term related to the item I don’t understand) and read Page 72, than walk into the other room (provided I’m not on a plane or train), find the book, balance book and laptop on my knee, refer to the Table of Contents, Index, leaf through pages ….

How to drive away honest readers

Digital Rights Management (DRM) that locks up ebooks only angers and inconveniences honest people. Those who are inclined to steal will find a way round anything — as Maria mentioned with the pirated copies. And I believe that most people are honest, especially if we make it easier for them to be honest than not.

The role of publishers

Publishers have a role in matching up the expertise and writing / teaching skills of authors with readers who want that knowledge. Once upon a time publishers fulfilled that role by marking paper with ink. Limitations of technology and transport led them to package books in certain formats of paper size, colour, number of pages and so on.

New tools, new possibilities

Now publishers have exciting new tools at their disposal, new distribution methods, and new challenges. It’s awfully hard for them, I imagine, but if they are to thrive they must embrace the new and find their role in it. They can only die a painful death if they try to fight against what their supporters (the information-buying public) want from them.

In non-fiction, especially computer manuals, people don’t buy books; they buy ‘packages of information’. They want to know how Tab B fits into Slot A. They want that information now. They don’t buy computer manuals as light bed-time general interest reading.

Give the readers what they need

Printed books aren’t in fact a good format for answering information queries; ebooks are. And what’s more, while print books are extremely limited — often by cost, but also by technology — ebooks can grows and stretch to fit the reader. Screenshots don’t need to be postage stamp sized grey blurs. Instead they can be thumbnails with a link to a full-colour readable size. An ebook may include or link to video, audio, slideshow, web pages, live examples, downloadable stuff.

Readers can, or should be able to, resize the text, bookmark pages, copy parts and paste into their own learning / record-keeping system.

An ebook can be flexible and useful and adaptable to its reader in ways printed books can never be.

Follow the money

The remarkable thing is that readers will pay (a reasonable amount) for things they could get free, if they perceive the package they’re paying for provides value. Some people will spend 5 hours searching, reading free blog posts and web pages to find out how to make the widgettybob slide into Tab B. Others will spend 5 minutes and $5 to buy the ebook that gives them the answer in another 5 minutes. And they’ll tell their friends about it, and some of them will buy the ebook too.

Maria says:

[publishers] need to provide quality content in a format that’s convenient for readers. If that’s a printed book, fine. But if it’s an unprotected PDF with hyperlinks to internal and online content, publishers need to accept that — and make their ebooks the ones readers look for when they need information.

I say: publishers of computer manuals must do that or they’ll be out of business soon.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Visitors don’t read text on websites; instead they leave as soon as possible. Take this into account when you create a website.

One click to leave

Your website is only one click away from a million other websites. Grab the reader’s attention, and keep it, or they are just as likely to leave your site and head for more interesting pages. Recent research shows you have about 1.5 seconds to capture their attention.

Visitors skim and leave

Research has shown people seldom actually read a web page. They skim the page quickly and only stop to read when something takes their interest.

Many people also dislike reading on a computer screen and either print off interesting material or just move on.

Cut the guff

To gain and hold your visitor’s attention:

• put the important information first
• get to the point quickly
• offer highlights
• break the text into easily accessible chunks.

Be brief

Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Aim for about 15 to 20 words maximum in a sentence and five or six lines for a paragraph.

Use headings and lists

Use plenty of headings and lists where appropriate.

A heading should be a headline that summarises the paragraphs below it. Think: what would a newspaper put as the heading? A reader should be able to grasp the overall meaning of a page just by looking at headings.

Numbered or bullet point lists are easier to read and grasp than long lines of text.

Write plainly

Avoid jargon, abbreviations and acronyms, and be sure to explain the ones you do use. Your organisation might know what NZXYZ means, but does your visitor?

Use fast-loading images

Graphics, images, charts and diagrams are often useful, but beware making the page load too slowly. Use image editing software to reduce the file size of the image. If you need a high resolution image (eg larger than 30KB), then use a small ‘thumbnail’ picture and link to the larger version.

Choose page length carefully

People are easily put off by having to scroll, and scroll, and scroll. On the other hand, they don’t like having to click, and click, and click to read things.

Think carefully about whether and how to divide text into multiple pages. Will readers have slow or fast connections? Will they want to print the item, rather than reading on screen? Can you provide the information in more than one way, to match what visitors want?

Leave ‘empty’ space

Use plenty of white space too. Don’t try to “cram” a lot of text into a small space. A ‘crowded’ page is hard to read.

Think about fonts and typography

If your web designer is setting fonts for the web page then remember that while serif fonts such as Times are fantastic for print, sans serif fonts such as Verdana work best on the computer screen.

Try to keep lines of text from getting too long (by using Cascading Style Sheets, not by adding manual breaks). Lines that are too short or too long are hard to read.

Add some space between lines as well. Lines that are crammed too close together are hard to read.

Crawford Kilian’s Adapting Print to the Web is a very useful article.

Written for and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, October 2004. The item has been edited for reproduction here.

Popularity: 10% [?]