Develop Content for Communication

The Writer's Role

You might be wondering, with all this collaboration and shared responsibility, what is the writer's role? Trying to make usable the words and their environment should be the primary concern of anyone who undertakes the challenge of writing for the Web. Their challenge, at the end of the day, is to create content that successfully communicates in the environment in which it is displayed.

Kathy Henning, a prolific Web writer with substantial experience in both writing and editing, claims that Web content must exhibit seven qualities to be successful.

1. Clarity

Clarity is more than an absence of ambiguity. Writing clearly is like telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Your writing needs to make sense, just like your Website does.

"It is sobering to observe a test where a user repeatedly asks, 'How do I go to the next step?' and you want to scream 'Click the Next button!' that they just somehow can't see," observes Dan Bricklin, a renowned software engineer, on his Website.

2. Relevance

Readers expect relevant content online. If they don't find it quickly, they'll leave. One way to increase the relevance of your writing is to have plenty of relevant links within your Web page that will add to your arguments, and back up your claims.

3. Brevity

Make sure your writing isn't woolly. You need to write with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel. No superfluous words allowed. Write for effect, by all means, but get to the point -- and fast! In other words, be succinct.

4. Scanability and Readability

A study titled "Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web" indicated that users prefer to scan rather than read, want text to be short and to the point, and detest overly-hyped promotional writing ("marketese").

The researchers found improvements in usability for new versions of a site that were either scannable, concise, or objective (rather than promotional) in style. When all three writing style improvements were combined in a final version of the site, its usability increased 124%.

So make it easier for users. If you have obvious sections to your writing, divide them up using numbers. If you have lots of small points to make, then use a bulleted list. Users should be able to scan your document and immediately pick up the main points of your communication.

5. Consistency

Be consistent, not only in your writing, but also within the site itself. Have consistent navigation aids throughout your work that allow the user to know where they can go next.

And try to keep to the same theme on all your pages: inconsistency will confuse your readers. They won't know whether they're still reading your work if the design of each page is different.

6. Freedom from Errors

Having your work riddled with errors will not only present you as an amateur, but it'll also spoil the experience for the user. Use your spell check religiously (and please write in if you spot a mistake in this article, as it will never be lived down!).

Never be the sole proof reader of your writing. Have someone else, ideally a professional proof reader or editor, proof it both before and after coding (proofing content before coding isn't enough. Text can be dropped, put in the wrong place, retyped incorrectly, or miscoded).

SitePoint employs an editor, so all errors can be blamed on them, which certainly makes it easier for an author to shrug their shoulders and simply point the finger. In reality, though, it's a fact of life that other people will perceive things differently to you, so having them go over your work before it is offered to the masses will give you a different perspective of, and insight into your communication.

7. Good Integration with the Site Design

Designing Web pages should be a combined, iterative course of action between the writer and the designer, because a Website's design can have a big impact on its content. What sounds good in a text file might be all wrong once the text is incorporated into the design.