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Web awareness and writing October 2014 Your website isn’t written for you, it’s for your visitors. When we visit a web page, it’s usually to complete a task: •Find information •Answer a question •Report a fault. Writing for the web is different from most other types of writing. We skim and scan until we find the information we want. So it’s important to only write out what’s really necessary. Reading online content • Reading is slower on screen • Web readers tire quickly • Visitors scan your content • They leave quickly Eye-tracking results mainly produce an ‘F’ or ‘E’ pattern on the web page. Creating good web content requires three stages: 1. Planning 2. Writing 3. Editing Planning your content 1. Who is your audience? 2. What are you going to tell them? 3. How are you going to tell them? Understanding your audience Write with a specific person in mind. When you write for ‘everybody’, you write for nobody. Understanding your audience Most readers: •Probably have better things to do •Rarely read from start to finish •Always read between the lines •Aren’t idiots. But probably aren’t experts in your subject area. What’s your message? What’s the one thing you want your readers to know or do when they’ve finished reading? What’s your message? If you want them to complete an action — click a button, sign up for a newsletter — make it obvious. Give them plenty of opportunity to do so. Don’t assume they’ll read to the end. How are you going to tell them? The voice and tone you adopt can have a big impact on how your readers perceive you. And what you have to say. What’s the purpose of your site? Think about the site you’ll be working on: • • • • Who is your audience? What do you think they want to do? What do you want them to do? What’s the one thing you could do to the site that would have the most positive impact for your audience? Talk us through this. Writing your content 1. Clear and simple 2. Headings 3. Links Keep it simple That doesn’t mean you need to dumb things down. Instead, find the core of your message. And remove everything else. “It’s simple. I just removed everything that didn’t look like David.” – Michaelangelo Clear and simple language • Adopt a conversational style • Use ‘you’ and ‘we’ • Avoid complex sentence structures • Write in the active form (most of the time): • Yes — We did the research so that... • No — The research was done by us so that.. • Avoid slang or jargon • Use simple words where possible: • ‘End’, not ‘terminate’ • ‘Because’, not ‘in view of the fact’ Active/passive voice No — “Books may be borrowed from the library.” Yes — “You can borrow books from the library.” No — “It is recommended that...” Yes — “We recommend that...” Plain English No — “…subsequent approval of which will be a pre-requisite to the raising of any internal order mechanism.” Yes — “You’ll need approval before we can raise an internal order.” Clear and simple structure • Express one idea per paragraph • Start pages and paragraphs with the conclusion followed by the details • Use lists wherever possible • Bullets when there’s no specific order • Numbered lists when there is What is good content? Imagine you are a prospective student trying to find and apply for accommodation. Take a look at some of these sites and note down what you think are examples of good and bad content. 1.Abertay Dundee: http://go.bath.ac.uk/7dtz 2.Warwick: http://go.bath.ac.uk/hzqc 3.Edinburgh: http://go.bath.ac.uk/24ct 4.UCL: http://go.bath.ac.uk/khgl 5.York: http://go.bath.ac.uk/3zwi Good content effectively communicates its intended message to its intended audience. Editing your content 1. Kill your darlings 2. Say it out loud 3. Give it to someone else “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left” – Steve Krug, usability expert Kill your darlings Be ruthless. Cut anything that doesn’t serve your message. Even if it’s your favourite part. Say it out loud This is the best way to test the tone and pace of your writing. It really helps with punctuation too. Give it to someone else Preferably someone who isn’t familiar with the subject. This helps make sure that what you’ve written is clear and that you haven’t made any assumptions. Guidelines and support Supporting your content Guidelines help us all to work towards a unified look and feel across the website. They help us to position the University brand and produce high-quality, audience-focused web content. Editorial style guide – how to write for the web, plus house spellings, help with punctuation and grammar, and more. Image guide – guidance about choosing, preparing and uploading appropriate images to bring our web content to life. Blogging style guide – advice for the University of Bath’s blogging community to help them keep their posts in shape and their readers happy. Images A well-chosen picture can be worth a thousand words. But it needs to add to the story, rather than just repeat what’s there. Images • Appropriate for the content of the page • Support not distract • Always use alt text Here to help and advise - [email protected] Alt text We add hidden text, or 'alt text', to images on our web pages. This way, there's always content for viewers to engage with, even if the picture doesn't display on their reading device. • Alt text is an alternative to the image. • Aim to explain what the image says within the context of the page. Photography guidelines: https://wiki.bath.ac.uk/display/visID/Photography Using meaningful headings Headings help: • Users to understand contents • at a glance • Screen readers to detect structure • Search engines to index your content Using meaningful headings What should you do? • • • • Use headings generously Make headings outline your structure Keep headings simple and descriptive Use sentence case Link text Never use ‘here’ or ‘click here’. Users, search engines and non-visual browsers rely on informative link text. Write link text that: • Makes sense on its own • Is long enough to click easily • Uses action phrases • Yes – Order a prospectus • No – Prospectus Link text Try rewriting these examples of bad link text: • • • • • • Click here to download Safari Visit our website to learn about our research For information about the medical centre click here Click here to order now Tell me more about Web Design Download a brochure here Metadata • Data about data • Information that describes the content you are creating • Makes information easy to find for search engine • Helps with accessibility Metadata 1. Page title 2. Keywords 3. Description Page title • First piece of content screen reading software will read out to a user • Short but accurate description of the content • Don’t repeat the same title through your site. • Should follow ’page name’ | the department name’. • http://www.bath.ac.uk/digital/about-us.html • Page title: About us | Digital Marketing and Communications Page description • What you see in search engine results page describing the pages returned. • 155 characters, including spaces • Try to use some of your main keywords in the description Keywords • Search engine uses these keywords and phrases to try to provide accurate results • Five to ten keywords or phrases that accurately describe contents of page • Try to make combination of words unique to page as possible • Don’t use same ones throughout the site as will compete with each other for search results • Use commas to separate words The legal bits Copyright www.bath.ac.uk/web/copyright/ •for example, don’t use photographic content without consent or paying for it Advertising standards http://www.asa.org.uk/ •we should always be legal, honest, decent and truthful Equality Act (2010) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents •use inclusive language (according to race, religion, culture, gender, age, disability and so on) •don’t create a two-tier level of provision that discriminates. Freedom of Information (FOI) www.bath.ac.uk/foi/ •the publication scheme and right of access request Data Protection and Privacy Statement www.bath.ac.uk/web/privacy •always gain consent to use personal information. For example, using a model release form, permission to use names and addresses •www.bath.ac.uk/data-protection Disclaimer www.bath.ac.uk/web/disclaimer/ Questions and general discussion Now think about your web pages. • How do you think you could improve them now? • Are there any issues you’d like advice on? • How could you use the tools we’ve discussed? Here to help and advise - [email protected] What’s next? Editing in the CMS essentials training Course covers: • • • • • using web awareness and web writing principles using the CMS to make simple page changes creating links to pages pasting content from another source adding contact details from Person Finder.