Good web writing is like a conversation

Think of your web content as your part of a conversation – not a rambling dialogue but a focused conversation started by a very busy person.

In many cases, web sites are replacing phones. In many cases, the point of web content is for people to get information for themselves from your web site rather than calling.

When site visitors come with questions, you have to provide answers. When site visitors come to do a task, you have to help them through the task. But, because you aren’t there in person to lead them to the right place, give them the answer, or walk them through the steps, you have to build your site to do that in your place. You have to build your side of the conversation into the site.

Good web writing answers people’s questions

As we’ll see in later chapters, if you think of the web as conversation, you’ll realize that much of your content is meant to answer the questions that people come with. You do not want an entire site to be in a section called frequently asked questions. You do want to think about what people come wanting to know and then about how to give them that information as concisely and clearly as possible.

Good web writing lets people “grab and go’

On the web, breaking information into pieces for different users, different topics, different questions, and different needs helps web users to grab just what they need and go on to look up their next question, do their next task, make a decision, get back to work, or do whatever comes next for them. In this book, we’ll look at several ways to write so that busy web users can grab and go. Figures 1-1 and 1-2 show you just one example of how we can transform traditional writing into good web writing.

Figure 1-1 Paragraph style makes it very difficult to quickly grab information.

www.faa.gov

Figure 1-2 My suggested revision makes it easy for different users to quickly grab the information that they need.

Introducing Letting Go of the Words

My goal in this book is to help you provide your site visitors with high-quality content that is easy to find and easy to understand. Letting Go of the Words is about planning, selecting, organizing, writing, illustrating, reviewing, and testing content that meets people’s needs – that gives them a successful and satisfying web experience.

Let’s talk a bit about what this book is and what it is not, as well as about how you might work with Letting Go of the Words.

It’s about writing and design, not technology

Letting Go of the Words is about strategy and tactics, not about tools. I’ll help you think about the people who come to your web site and help you write so that they have a successful web experience and you have a successful web site. Technology changes too fast to be a major part of the book – and the principles of good writing for the web transcend the technology you use.

It’s full of examples

I know you want examples, so I’ve included lots of screen shots. (It’s smart to want examples; it’s easier to understand a point if you can see it as well as read about it.)

In many cases, I’ve also shown how I might revise the web page. In consulting projects, of course, I work closely with the subject matter experts to be sure that the final writing is accurate and consistent with the web site’s personality and style. Here, I’ve shown what I might do because I have not worked with every web site that I show in the book.

Also, web sites change. In a few cases, the site changed while I was writing the book and I’ve included two shots to make a point about the change. Many more of the sites in this book may have changed by the time you go to look at them. That does not invalidate what I am showing. Even old examples can make excellent learning opportunities. If you see ways to improve the web writing on your site from any of the examples in the book, the examples will have done their job.

It’s based in a user-centered design process

User-centered design is a process for creating products that work well for their users. When you practice user-centered design, you focus on people: their goals, their needs, their ways of working, and their environments. User-centered design means that you are using technology to help people achieve their goals in ways that work for them.

The concepts and processes of user-centered design flow through this book. My goal is to help you develop a usable and useful web site for your audiences. When you talk to others, you may hear terms like “reader-focused writing,” “usability,” and “plain language.” To me, those are all names for what we are striving for. They are all part of the same idea; they are all aspects of user-centered design.

You can start the process in several places

If you are revising an existing web site, you might want to start by finding out how well it works for the people whom you want to use it. The best technique for finding out how well a site works is usability testing: watching and listening while representative users try to find specific information or accomplish specific tasks with the web site.

You should not wait until the end of a project to do usability testing. In fact, usability testing is a great way to start your web project. Test early; test often; test on a small-scale, iteratively.

You can jump around in the book

A book has to be linear, but you don’t have to use it that way. The path I’ve set up through the book is one logical way to move: from users to scenarios to home pages to pathway pages to destination pages – and then within destination pages through overall design, writing, lists and tables, headings, illustrations, and links – ending with getting from first draft to final web page.

But that may not be the most logical path for you or for your project. Feel free to jump around in the book. Read it once through quickly now and then come back to it again when you have a specific question or need.

You can join our web community

I hope that you will learn from Letting Go of the Words and that it will answer most of your questions. I would also like to continue the conversation that I’m starting in this book. Join us on the web site at www.redish.net/writingfortheweb to ask a question, voice an opinion, get information about usability testing and other topics, and share your examples.