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A Book Review of Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny Reddish)

A Book Review of Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny Reddish). DDD Self –Directed Time January 27, 2012. Why?. Recommended at STC Conference Keep up with latest trends and research Frequently cited by other authors Focus on topic by reading entire book from start to finish.

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A Book Review of Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny Reddish)

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  1. A Book Review of Letting Go of the Wordsby Janice (Ginny Reddish) DDD Self –Directed Time January 27, 2012

  2. Why? • Recommended at STC Conference • Keep up with latest trends and research • Frequently cited by other authors • Focus on topic by reading entire book from start to finish

  3. What this book is about • Writing and design • Based on a user-centered design process • Kristina Halvorson - This book “tackles the extraordinarily important concept of content as conversation.” <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  4. What makes writing for the web work well? • It’s like a conversation. • It answers people’s questions. • It lets people grab and go. <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  5. People! People! People! • Successful writers focus on their audience • Steps to understanding your audience • List you major audiences - audiences are people, not departments, institutions, or building • Gather information about your audiences • Use your information to create personas - include goals and tasks • Use your information to write scenarios <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  6. Personas • A composite of characteristics of many real people • What information goes in to a persona • Name • Picture • Demographics (age, ability, job, education, interests,etc.) • Technology • Experience, expertise • Tasks and goals • Make personas a member of the web team (i.e., What would Jim do?) <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  7. Scenarios • Short stories about  what people who come to your site want to do - can be as short as a couple of sentences • Scenarios tell you the conversations people want to start • Everything on the web site should fulfill a scenario (if no plausible scenario for the content, why have it on the website?) <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  8. Successful web experience To have a successful experience on a web site, people have to: • find what they need • understand what they find • act appropriately on that understanding <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  9. Three types of web pages • This book is mostly about writing information pages. <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  10. Home page • Don’t expect people to read much • Make the site’s identity and brand obvious with very few words • Set the tone and personality with choices of color, graphics, typography, writing style, etc. • Make it instantly clear what the site is about • Use mostly links and short descriptions • Let people start key tasks right away <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  11. Pathway pages • Most site visitors are on a hunt - and the pathway is just to get them there • People don’t want to read a lot while hunting • A pathway page is like a table of contents • The smoothness of the path is more important than the number of clicks (within reason) • Many people choose the first option that looks plausible • Many site visitors are landing inside the site <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  12. Writing information, not documents • Break up large documents. • Think topics, not book • Ways to divide web content: • time or sequence (something happens first, them something else) • task (use a single web page for each task) • people (user types) • type of information (step-by-step instructions; clear chunks of facts with good headings) • questions people ask <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  13. Writing information, not documents (cont’d) When deciding how much content to put on a page, consider: • how much people want in one visit • how connected the information is • how long the the web page is (think 3-4 page scrolls max) • the download time • will people want to print; how much? Example: http://www.labrescue.org/labs-available.html <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  14. Focusing on your essential messages • Give people only what they need • Cut, cut, cut - most people don’t want to read much • Start with the key point - write in an inverted pyramid style • Break up the text - keep paragraphs short and use bulleted lists • Layer information - don’t overwhelm with too much information <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  15. Designing your web pages for easy use • Make the page elements obvious, using patterns and alignment • Consider the entire site when planning the design • Work with templates • Keep active space in your content • Beware of false bottoms - don’t pub a horizontal line or large blocks of space across the page • Don’t let headings float • Don’t center text • Set a sans serif font as the default <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  16. Designing web pages (cont’d) • Think broadly about users and their situations when setting type size • Use a fluid layout with a medium line length as a default • Don’t write in all capitals • Don’t underline anything but links • Provide good contrast between text and background • Think about all your site visitors when you choose colors <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  17. Tuning up your sentences As you write: • Picture the people you are talking with (think of your personas if you have them) • Ask yourself: What would someone ask me about this topic on the phone? • Reply to them as if they were on the phone <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  18. Tuning up your sentences (cont’d) • Talk to your site visitors; use “you” • Show that you are a person and that your organization includes people; use “we” • Write in an active voice (most of the time) • Write simple, short, straightforward sentences (~10-20 words) • Cut unnecessary words • Give extra information its own place - don’t put extra stuff between the subject and the verb • Keep paragraphs short • Start with context - first things first, second things second • Put the actions in the verbs, not the nouns • Use your web users’ words <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  19. Using bulleted lists • Use lists to make information easy to grab • Keep most lists short • Short (5-10 items) for unfamiliar lists • Long may be OK with familiar lists (e.g., list of states) • Format lists to make them work well • eliminate the space between the introduction and the list • put a space between long items • Match bullets to your site’s personality <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  20. Using numbered lists • Use numbered lists for instructions • Turn paragraphs into steps • Give even complex instructions as steps • Keep the sentence structure in lists parallel • Don’t number list items if they are not steps and people might confuse them with steps <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  21. Using tables • Use tables when you have numbers to compare • Use tables for a series for “if, then” sentences • Think about tables as answers to questions • Keep tables simple • Format tables so that people focus on the information and not the lines • don’t put thick lines between the columns or between the rows • don’t center the text in a table <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  22. Breaking up text with headings • Start by outlining your content with headings • Ask questions as headings when people come with questions • Use action phrase headings for instructions • Use noun and noun phrase headings sparingly • Use your site visitors’ words in the headings <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  23. Headings (cont’d) • Use parallelism • Keep no more than two levels of headings below the title page • Make heading levels obvious • Distinguish headings from text with type size, bold, or color <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

  24. Chapters left to read • Using illustrations effectively • Writing meaningful links • Getting from draft to final web pages <Insert Presentation Title in Footer View>

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