Web Writing That Works!

           A Project of
           The Communication Circle

Guidelines Rants Patterns Poems Services Classes Press Blog Resources About Us Site Map

HomeGuidelines                                                                                                                                                                                   

 


1.  Trim that text!

2.  Make text
     scannable

3.  Cook up hot links

4.  Write chunky
     paragraphs

5.  Reduce cognitive
     burdens

6.  Make meaningful
     menus

Guidelines

Follow these six strategies to create Web writing that really works. For each strategic idea, we provide half a dozen or more specific guidelines.

Each guideline is based on research in usability, readability, and design, plus the experience of a lot of experienced professionals.

With each guideline, you get:

  • Tactics: what to do, and how to do it
  • Background: Quotes from experts, plus a list of books, articles, and web pages for more information
  • Diagram: A visual explanation of the tactic
  • Examples: Before and after, so you can see what a difference the tactic makes
  • Audience Fit: See how well this tactic applies to your audience, and when it will be important for them
  • Challenges: Test the idea out on some sample passages, then, to see how well you've done, look at possible solutions

Bonus

To measure how well your own organization is following these strategies, you can apply a Heuristic Online Text (HOT) Evaluation of a particular strategy, or call us, and we'll do a thorough study, coming up with detailed recommendations.

Resources

Job Aid

Shuffling the Big Ideas

Test yourself (Complete set of challenges, based on these guidelines, PDF, 150K, or about 3 minutes at 56K)

The Ultimate Challenge: Chocorama

 

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Web Writing that Works!
http://www.WebWritingThatWorks.com
 © 2004 Jonathan and Lisa Price
The Communication Circle
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