Articles: Content
Collecting, Writing, and
Revising Content
Easy-to-use-content is critical
Stages and guidelines for preparing easy-to-use
content
Why is easy-to-use-content so critical
Easy-to-use content is critical
The heart of a Web site
is the content. Users come to a Web site
because they want the content — the
information. Even in an e-commerce Web
site, users are looking for information
to help in their decisions on what to
buy.
Stages and guidelines for
preparing easy-to-use content
Selecting only what your
audiences need
Organizing content logically for the audiences
Writing content visually
1. Selecting only what your
audiences need
The right content is the
information that users want and need.
You find out what users want and need
by collecting data from them and by doing
usability testing with them.
For every piece of the content,
ask:
Is this relevant to users
of the Web site (not just to me)?
Do users really want or need this information?
2. Organizing content logically for your
audiences
Break the text into manageable
pieces
Put in many headings
Write useful headings
Use the headings as introductory hyperlinks
If the information is sequential, put
it in that order
For non-sequential info, put what users
need most first
• Break the text into
manageable pieces
This is sometimes called
"chunking" the text. Chunking
operates on many levels. All of the following
contribute to chunking and making text
manageable:
short sections
short paragraphs
short sentences
lists
tables
pictures
examples
Text that is not chunked well seems very
dense to users, and they often won't even
try to read it. And what is okay on paper
seems much denser on the screen.
• Put in many headings
Headings help to break up
the text. They also facilitate skimming
and scanning. Because headings are usually
in bold or color, they make the page more
interesting.
Each short section should
have its own heading, and a short section
should be only one or two short paragraphs
long. A short section might be just a
list or a table. For example, look at
how we use headings on this page.
• Write useful headings
Useful headings include
Questions Do you charge
for shipping?
Sentences We never charge for shipping
Phrases No charge for shipping over $50
Action phrases Register for the conference
Imperatives Register on this form
• Use the headings
as introductory hyperlinks
Headings help users in two
ways:
1. By skimming over the
headings, users should get a summary or
big picture of the content.
2. By quickly finding the
heading that relates to what they want
to know, users should be able to jump
to the right place in the information.
In a printed book, you make
the headings work in both these ways by
turning the headings into a table of contents.
Online, you do the same thing by gathering
each group of headings into an introductory
list of hyperlinks. Look at the sets of
hyperlinks on this page as examples.
• If the information is sequential,
put it in that order
Once you have the information
chunked and have a useful heading for
each chunk, you must decide what order
is most appropriate for the chunks. In
many cases, the right order is obvious
because the information is sequential.
This happens before that or users must
know this before they can understand that.
• For non-seqential
info, put what users need most first
If there is no obvious chronological
or sequential order, put what users want
or need most first. For example, in planning
this section on selecting, organizing,
and writing content, we had two basic
types of information:
• how-to (Stages and
guidelines for preparing easy-to-use content)
• reasons (Why is easy-to-use content
so critical?)
We decided that most users
would be most anxious to get practical
advice on how to do it first. They might
be interested in the reasons for following
this advice, but that would be of secondary
importance to them. So we put the how-to
information before the reasons.
3. Writing content visually
The Web is a visual medium.
Here are a dozen ways to write content
visually:
Use blank space well
Cut out words
Keep paragraphs short
Keep sentences short
Use fragments
Use the users' words
Use bulleted lists
Use numbered lists for steps in a procedure
Use tables
Give examples
Meet users' expectations for the way information
is displayed
Use icons or small pictures to enhance
the words
Include pictures and other graphics, when
appropriate
• Use blank space
well
Space is at a premium on
Web pages. Large amounts of blank space
are a waste of screen "real estate"
and can fool people into thinking there
is nothing further down the page.
If you have no blank space,
however, users won't find the different
pieces of information. They won't see
your "chunks."
Fragments, lists, tables,
and examples all put some space on the
page because they are shorter lines of
text than typical prose.
Pictures - icons, photos,
line drawings, etc. - add color and blank
space (around the picture). They can also
be part of your message — replacing
words or adding another dimension of meaning
— but only if you choose the pictures
wisely.
• Cut out words
You can often convey the
essential message in half as many words
as you originally wrote.
Revise. Revise. Revise.
Do not assume that your first draft is
the best you can do. Write a draft. Leave
it for a day or so. Go back to it and
try to make your point even more succinctly.
• Keep paragraphs
short
A one sentence paragraph
may be fine.
• Keep sentences short
Users need to grasp the
meaning quickly. You can often put secondary
information in another sentence, in a
table, in fragments, or leave it out entirely.
• Use fragments
In frequently asked questions
(FAQs) for example, don't repeat words
from the question in the answer.
• Use the users' words
Avoid jargon. Think about
these changes:
In moving to the Web, is
your audience expanding? Should you change
words for your broader Web audience?
The Web is available globally. Should
you change words to reach a world-wide
audience?
Even if you are writing for a United States
government site, don't you want people
outside of the U. S. to understand your
content? Even if your audience is only
U. S. residents, consider how many of
them speak English as a second language.
For your broader audience, should you
consider translating the Web pages into
other languages? Short sentences, simple
words, consistency in how you use words
all contribute to easier translations.
Did all users understand the original
document? Even your original users may
be better served by changes. Use bulleted
lists
• Use bulleted lists
Lists are an excellent way
to break up text. Nielsen found that lists
accounted for 47% of the improvement in
changes he made to the Sun Web site. See
www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html.
• Use numbered lists
for steps in a procedure
Recognize when you are telling
people how to do something. If it is a
procedure, it has steps. If it has steps,
set them out in a numbered list.
A numbered list has many
advantages. Users can easily:
see how many steps they
have to do
do one step at a time and know where to
come back to
start in the middle if they had done some
steps earlier
use the list to check that they have done
it all
• Use tables
A table is a visual way
of representing a series of "if,
then" sentences. We use a table by
scanning down the first column to find
the place that fits our situation. Then
we look across that row to find the information
we are seeking for our situation.
Each of these rows is the
same as saying "If the value of the
order is this amount, then this is how
much you pay for shipping." A table
shows the essential information without
all the little words that you would have
to repeat in each sentence if you wrote
it out as prose.
A table can be words as
well as numbers. In putting together a
table, always make the left-most column
the one that has what people know when
they come to the table — what you
would put in the "if" clause
of an "if, then" sentence.
• Give examples
Users love examples. They
often go right to the examples instead
of reading the text.
• Meet users' expectations
for the way information is displayed
For example, if you are
giving
an address, write it on
separate lines like an address
prices or hours, list them as you would
see them in a store
• Use icons or small pictures to
enhance the words
Without being overly cute,
you can add a touch of humor and help
users at the same time. For example:
If you are telling people
how to reach you, put in a picture of
a phone, a fax machine, etc.
If you are dealing with
a specific topic, there might be a relevant
icon for that topic.
(A word of caution: Think globally. Will
your icon or picture be recognized around
the world?)
• Include pictures
and other graphics, when appropriate
Use pictures, line art,
charts, and other graphics functionally.
The graphics should contribute to the
message, not just look pretty. Also, be
concerned about accessibility. For example,
make sure that the graphic is "readable"
by a reading program for the blind by
having an Alt-Text caption available.
Why is easy-to-use content
so critical?
In this section, we give
you some background information on why
following the guidelines about making
information visual is so important. Also,
we offer advice to those of you who are
being pressured to put paper documents
on the Web without revising them.
How do people use the Web?
Should I put paper documents on the Web?
What if I have users who read on the Web
and users who print to read?
• How do people use
the Web?
Users scan and select
Even on content pages, users skim, scan,
and select
Not reading makes sense
Not reading is not new to the Web
Reading on the Web may be more difficult
than on paper
Users scan and select
Users scan and select In
most encounters with a Web site, users
must first navigate to the page they need.
They do this by scanning and selecting
— or searching — seldom by reading
more than a few words. Time spent getting
to the right place is "down"
time so people want to do it as quickly
as possible.
Even on content pages, users skim, scan,
and select
Nielsen found that 79% of
users skimmed and scanned on Web pages
[www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/rewriting.html].
Web users don't want to read a lot.
Not reading makes sense
Most of the time, users
are trying to find a specific piece of
information or the answer to a specific
question. They often want to grab just
the information they need and get on towards
a goal. Having to read a lot is an obstacle
to completing the goal.
Not reading is not new to
the Web
Some people think that skimming
and scanning is unique to the Web. But
it's not. Workplace documents are different
from novels. People use documents. Even
with paper documents, people want to jump
in to just the information that they need,
grab that information, and jump back out
of the document.
Karen Schriver found that
81% of users with paper documents acted
just like Nielsen's web users. In reporting
their behavior with users' manuals, 46%
said they scanned them; 35% said they
used the documents for reference (which
I take to mean that they went to a specific
page to get a specific piece of information).
[Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design,
John Wiley & Sons, 1998, page 213.]
Reading on the Web may be more difficult
than on paper
Older research showed that
reading from the Web was about 25% slower
than reading from paper. That difference
may be disappearing with high resolution
monitors, although we do not yet have
definitive research with a relevant task,
such as reading and understanding. Many
people still find reading from the screen
for extended periods to be difficult and
tiring.
• Should I put paper
documents on the Web?
That depends on whether
people are:
Using the Web as their primary
source of information
Using the Web as a repository (archive)
from which to print
Using the Web as primary
source of information
Most users want to get their
information directly from the Web. If
they are looking for a specific answer,
they don't want to see a whole book on
line.
A single printed book often
covers many disparate topics because in
print it is easier to publish and distribute
one large document than many small ones.
Online, putting it all in one "book"
isn't necessary.
Online, think "topic"
rather than "document."
In most cases, therefore,
the answer to whether to just put paper
documents on the Web is NO. The document
format you had on paper is usually not
the right one for your users on the Web.
Using the Web as a repository
(archive) from which to print
The Web does have a second
use — besides being a source of information
to be read on screen. It also serves as
a repository (an archive) for many journals,
magazines, press releases, reports, and
other printed material. The users of those
materials may want to print out entire
articles and read them from beginning
to end away from the computer. In that
case, of course, putting the printed materials
online in easily printable form is valuable.
But note how different that use of the
Web as a document retrieval system is
from its primary use as a direct source
of information.
• What if I have users
who read on the Web and users who print
to read?
Consider these four approaches:
Layer the information
Offer a separate printable document
Put each topic in a scrollable (and printable)
file
Offer a print version of the Web page
Layer the information
Put a summary of the information
in easily-accessible Web form and then
put a link to the printable version of
the paper document. This works for press
releases, scientific articles, long essays,
etc.
Offer a separate printable
document
If you are putting a document
on the Web that you assume some users
will read online and others will print
out, offer it in both HTML and in PDF
or some other easily-printable version.
Put each topic in a scrollable
(and printable) file
If you think users are going
to want to print topics and you are using
HTML, keep the information on that topic
in a single HTML file rather than spread
over pages. Although experience even three
years ago showed that users did not like
to scroll, that seems to be rapidly changing.
Many Web users today are comfortable with
scrolling vertically — still not
with scrolling horizontally.
Offer a "printer-friendly"
version of the Web page
Many sites now offer a printer-friendly
version of each scrollable page. The printer-friendly
version usually reduces the page to the
content area, stripping out the color-intensive
graphics and text that surround the content
area (logo and graphics from the top of
the page, navigation from the left or
right of the page).
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