In a study sponsored by Sun Microsystems, Jakob Nielsen found that by re-writing content for the web, Sun could improve measured usability by 124% - 159% by taking the following into account:
- 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word
- Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper
- Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent
To help our content providers gather appropriate content and write effectively for the Web, IWS has prepared a brief guide to writing on the Web.
1. Write for scanners and grazers.
- Research: According to Jakob Nielsen, only 16% of typical web users read each word. 79% of users scan a page, and then move on.
- Tip: To engage users, avoid using too many adjectives or jargon-heavy promotional language. Highlight the most important points and use the language that will reach the widest possible audience.
- Good Example: Penn Law School identified the unique qualities that they wanted users to remember about Penn. They made these points prominent on the page, and they didn’t dilute the message with too many words. The result is scanner’s delight, and each point receives the emphasis it deserves. http://www.law.upenn.edu/about/index.html
- Bad Example: Duke Law’s “About” section is a long unbroken text with no place for the eye to rest. Users must work hard to discover what is unique about Duke. http://www.law.duke.edu/about.html
2. Leave your users satisfied. Users become frustrated when they can’t find expected information.
- Tip: Think of a page from the user’s perspective. For instance, a user expects to find out how to visit a school in an Admissions section. This information is important for prospective students, prospective faculty, conference attendees, and anyone else who needs to find their way around. Of the top ten law schools, only Northwestern, Michigan, and UVA include easily accessible information about hotels and parking.
- Good Example: While Northwestern Law School's site has some visual weaknesses, they’ve done a good job of satisfying users hoping to visit the school. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/mainpages/visit/
- Bad Example: Harvard’s site buries important information, including accommodations and parking maps for notoriously congested Cambridge. Users, including faculty visitors, prospective students, and vendors may become frustrated by the inaccessibility and lack of navigation to help find practical visitor information. http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/
3. Write for a global audience.
- Include content that appeals to international users.
- Good Example: Columbia Law School has a strong presence in international law. At all levels of their site, they emphasize their international connections and make their international audience comfortable. The site even lists current students and graduates who are foreign nationals. http://www.law.columbia.edu/intl
- Bad Example: Michigan Law School, despite requiring a course in Transnational Law and having a strong joint degree program in Japanese and Chinese studies, includes no information for international visitors or prospective students. Judging only from site content and navigation, Michigan feels like a regional school trying to cash in on global buzz words. http://www.law.umich.edu/curriculum/index.htm
4. Users want to know how you can help them.
- Make information relevant.
- Anticipate needs.
- Show, don’t tell.
- Good Example: Tuck, Dartmouth’s business school, prominently features photographs and quotes from alumni that discuss the aspects of Tuck that have helped them in their legal careers. http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/
5. Tell Your Story. Before you begin writing your content, develop a list of themes and important adjectives to incorporate into your copy, images, and captions.
- Tip: Be sure to maintain a consistent voice that develops your unit's themes throughout the site.
- Good Example: UCLA Law changed a potential liability—their relatively short history—into a strength. On their “About” page, a lack of tradition became a “tradition of innovation.” The school extends the theme of innovation throughout their site. http://www.law.ucla.edu/home/index.asp?page=2
- Bad Example: Stanford Law’s website is a jumble of information. From the scrolling graphics to the difficult to read navigation, it’s hard to know Stanford’s story by looking at their site. http://www.law.stanford.edu/about/history/
6. Use an inverted pyramid structure. The broad side represents the most important information; the tip represents the least important.
- Get to the point immediately.
- Users want to know at a glance whether a page is going to either contain, or point them to, the information for which they’re looking.
- Think newspaper, not journal article.
- Good Example: The University of Pennsylvania’s site consistently uses pyramid structure and fewer words to tell their story. www.law.upenn.edu
7. Avoid complicated sentence structure and vary the sentence structure. Reading text on the web is much more taxing than reading it on paper. Don’t tire your audience.
8. Limit your great ideas to one per paragraph.
9. Chunk information.
- Research shows that people learn best with information presented in small chunks.
- Use formatting techniques, such as bullets, to chunk information.
10. Proofread your work. Then ask someone who does not work with the information to proofread it again.
11. Use bullets, but not too many.
- Bullets lead the eye down the page.
- Too many bullets are overwhelming, and detract from the prominence of each.
12. Use internal sub-headings as scan-able markers.
13. Use active voice and action words wherever possible. Avoid tired, promotional language. For example, on MIT’s Business School, they describe the faculty/student interaction as having “crackling energy.”
14. Create a style document for your section of the site.
15. Think before breaking multi-page documents into multi-pages. Sometimes breaking text into different pages causes user fatigue. Users don’t always want to click and wait for a page load. Consider whether breaking a long document into multiple pages will disrupt the flow.
