Letting Go of the Words by Janice Redish

• People come to web sites to satisfy goals, to do tasks, to get answers to questions.
• Navigation, search, design, and technology support the content that people come for.
• The best metaphor for the web is phone, not filing cabinet.
• Every use of your web site is a conversation started by your site visitor.
• Social media is pushing the web to be even more conversational.
• To have good conversations through your website:
• Answer your site visitors’ questions throughout your web content, not only in sections called frequently asked questions.
• Let your site visitors “grab and go.”
• Engage your site visitors.
• Market successfully to your site visitors by first satisfying the conversation they came to have.
• Improve search engine optimization (SEO) and internal site search.
• Be accessible to all.
• Planning your content is critical for apps, websites, individual web topics, blogs, social media messages--everything you write.
• Planning means asking: Why? Who? What conversations?
• To have successful conversations, you have to know:
• What you want to achieve through your content.
• Who you are conversing with.
• What they want from your app, your site, your topic, your message; what task they want to accomplish.
• List all your purposes. Try to make them measurable.
• Understand that your readers are not blank slates. We all interpret as we read, bringing the baggage of our past experience and our own understanding of what words mean.
• Know your readers.
• You have many ways to learn about your site visitors.
• Gathering data from real sources from analytics to social media to site visitors and usability testing is much better than making assumptions about your site visitors.
• List major characteristics for each group of site visitors, including:
• Key phrases or quotes
• Experience, expertise
• Emotions
• Values
• Technology
• Social and cultural environments and language
• Demographics
• Gather site visitors’ questions, tasks, and stories.
• Use your information to create personas.
• Use your information to write scenarios.
• Scenarios tell you the conversations people want to start.
• Everything on your site should fulfill a scenario.
• Scenarios can help you write good content.
• Integrate content and design from the beginning.
• Answer content and design questions together.
• Use real content throughout the process.
• Build in flexibility for universal usability.
• Make adjusting text size obvious.
• Make all the text adjust.
• Allow other changes--contrast, keyboard, voice, and more.
• Check the colors for color-blind site visitors.
• Think about the cultural meaning of colors.
• Color
• Work with your brand colors.
• Use light on dark sparingly.
• Keep the background clear.
• Keep the contrast high.
• Space
• Create consistent patterns.
• Align elements on a grid.
• Keep active space in your content.
• Beware of false bottoms.
• Don’t let headings float.
• Don’t center text.
• Typography
• Set a legible sans serif font as the default.
• Make the default text size legible for your visitors.
• Set a medium line length as the default.
• Don’t write in all capitals.
• Underline only links.
• Use italics sparingly.
• Consider the entire site.
• Your keywords must match searches’ keywords.
• Gaming the system doesn’t work.
• Remarkable content is what matters.
• Identify the site.
• Set the site’s tone and personality.
• Help people get a sense of what the site is all about.
• Continue the conversation quickly.
• Focus on your key visitors and their key tasks.
• Let people start major tasks on the home page.
• Make sure the forms are high on the page.
• Don’t put unnecessary forms up front.
• Send each person on the right way.
• Put search near the top.
• Use your site visitors’ words in your links.
• In mobile versions, strip down to the essentials by thinking about who uses your site on a mobile and the information and tasks that they most want when using a mobile.
• Most people will not read a paragraph of text on a pathway page. They want the page to tell them what to do without having to read much.
• Using the letters ofthe alphabet may work well as an index--the way into a very long list of topics. But is does not work well for other uses.
• You are in a conversation with your site visitors. As you construct pathway pages, think of the message that the page must send to keep people on a good path.
• If your site is large enough, you may need pathway pages between the home page and the information people want.
• Pathway pages are just that--a way to navigate down a path to the information, product, service, or task the site visitor needs.
• Site visitors hunt like bloodhounds for what they need.
• They don’t want to read while hunting.
• They don’t want to be distracted.
• Welcoming messages and long marketing messages don’t work well on pathway pages.
• A pathway page is like a table of contents. It should be mostly links.
• Sometimes, short descriptions help. However, remember these points:
• Watch the jargon.
• Don’t assume a picture is enough with no description or specs (especially for technology products).
• It’s okay to write in fragments.
• Three clicks is a myth. The smoothness of the path is more important than the number of clicks (within reason).
• Don’t make people think on pathway pages.
• Keep people from needing to go back.
• Many people choose the first option, so think carefully about what you put first.
• Think “information”, not “document”.
• Divide your content thoughtfully by:
• Questions people ask
• Topic or task
• Product type
• Information type
• People
• Life event
• Time or sequence
• Consider how much to put on one web page.
• What does the site visitor want?
• How long is the page?
• What’s the download time?
• How much do people want to print?
• What will I do for small screens--and for social media?
• Use PDFs sparingly and only for good reasons.
• Give people only what they need.
• Cut! Cut! Cut! And cut again!
• Think “bite, snack, meal”.
• Start with your key message. Write in inverted pyramid style.
• Layer information.
• Break down walls of words.
• Plan to share and engage through social media.
• Seven guidelines for headlines that work well
• Use your site visitors’ words.
• Be clear instead of cute.
• Think about your global audience.
• Try for a medium length (about eight words).
• Use a statement, question, or call to action.
• Combine labels (nouns) with more information.
• Add a short description if people need it.
• Use your site visitors’ words.
• Be clear instead of cute.
• Think about your global audience.
• Try for a medium length (about eight words).
• Use a statement, question, or call to action.
• Combine labels (nouns) with more information.
• Add a short description if people need it.
• Eleven guidelines for writing useful headings
• Don’t slap headings into old content.
• Start by outlining.
• Choose a good heading style: questions, statements, verb phrases.
• Use nouns and noun phrases sparingly.
• Put your site visitors’ words in the headings.
• Exploit the power of parallelism.
• Use only a few levels of headings.
• Distinguish headings from text.
• Make each level of heading clear.
• Help people jump to content within a web page.
• Evaluate! Read the headings.
• Good headings help readers in many ways.
• Thinking about headings also helps authors.
• Don’t slap headings into old content.
• Start by outlining.
• Choose a good heading style: questions, statement, verb phrases.
• Answer your site visitors’ questions.
• Write from your site visitors’ point of view.
• Keep the questions short.
• Consider starting with a keyword.
• Use key message bites as headings for sections.
• Give calls to action with imperatives.
• Use gerunds (“-ing” forms) for activities that aren’t direct calls to action.
• Use nouns and noun phrases sparingly.
• Put your site visitors’ words in the headings.
• Exploit the power of parallelism.
• Use only a few levels of headings.
• Distinguish headings from text.
• Make each level of heading clear.
• Help people jump to the content they need on the page.
• Put same-page links first under the page title.
• Don’t put off-page links at the top of the content area.
• Don’t put same-page links in the left navigation column.
• Evaluate! Read the headings.
• Review your content by “channeling” relevant personas.
• Read only the headings and see if the content is useful to the personas.
• Ten guidelines for tuning up your sentences
• Talk to your site visitors--use “you”.
• Use “I” and “we”.
• Write in the active voice (most of the time).
• Write short, simple sentences.
• Cut unnecessary words.
• Give extra information its own place.
• Keep paragraphs short.
• Start with the context.
• Put the action in the verb.
• Use your short visitors’ words.
• Writing informally is not “dumbing down”!
• Talk to your site visitors--use “you”.
• Use the imperative in instructions.
• Use “you” throughout.
• Use “you” to be gender-neutral.
• Use appropriate gender for specific people.
• Converse directly even for serious messages.
• Use “I” and “we”.
• In blogs and social media, “I” is fine.
• For your own articles, “I” is fine.
• When you write for an organization, use “we”.
• Be consistent in how you use “I”, “you”, and “we”.
• Write in the active voice (most of the time).
• Write simple, short, straightforward sentences.
• Very short sentences are okay, too.
• Fragments may also work.
• Busy site visitors always need clear writing.
• Cut unnecessary words.
• Give extra information its own place.
• Keep paragraphs short.
• A one-sentence paragraph is fine.
• Lists or tables may be even better.
• Start with the context.
• Put the action in the verbs.
• Use your site visitors’ words.
• Write for your site visitors.
• Know your site visitors.
• And always use plan language.
• Research shows that using these guidelines for clear writing for the web helps both low-literacy and high-literacy site visitors.
• Six guidelines for useful lists.
• Use bulleted lists for items or options.
• Match bullets to your site’s personality.
• Use numbered lists for instructions.
• Keep most lists short.
• Try to start list items the same way.
• Format lists well.
• Six guidelines for useful tables.
• Use tables for a set of “if, then” sentences.
• Use tables to compare numbers.
• Think tables = answers to questions.
• Think carefully about the first column.
• Keep tables simple.
• Format tables well.
• Use bulleted lists for items or options.
• Match bullets to your site’s personality.
• Use numbered lists for instructions.
• Turn paragraphs into steps.
• For branching, consider a table under the step.
• Show as well as tell.
• Use numbered lists for non instructions thoughtfully.
• Keep most lists short.
• Short (5-10 items) is best for unfamiliar items.
• Long may be okay for very familiar lists.
• Try to start list items the same way.
• Format lists well.
• Reduce space between the introduction and the list.
• Put space between long list items.
• Wrap lines under each other.
• Put what happens on a line by itself.
• Tables
• Understand the difference between lists and tables.
• Use tables for a set of “if, then” sentences.
• Use tables to compare numbers.
• Think tables = answers to questions.
• Think carefully about the first column.
• Keep tables simple.
• Format tables well.
• Reduce lines: Help people focus on information.
• Line up columns: Don’t center text in a table.
• Seven guidelines for writing meaningful links
• Don’t make new program or product names links by themselves.
• Think ahead: Launch and land on the same name.
• For actions, start with a verb.
• Make the link meaningful--not “Click Here” or just “More”.
• Don’t embed links (for most content).
• Make bullets with links active, too.
• Make unvisited and visited links obvious.
• Don’t make program or product names links by themselves.
• Think ahead: Launch and land on the same page.
• For actions, start with a verb.
• Make the link meaningful--not “Click Here” or just “More”.
• “Click Here” is not necessary.
• “More” or “Learn More” isn’t enough.
• Say what it’s “More” about.
• Don’t embed links (for most content).
• If people are browsing, embedding may be okay.
• Put links at the end, below, or next to your text.
• Make bullets with links active, too.
• Make unvisited and visited links obvious.
• Use your link colors only for links.
• Show visited links by changing the color.
• Seven guidelines for using illustrations effectively
• Don’t make people wonder what or why.
• Choose an appropriate size.
• Show diversity.
• Don’t make content look like ads.
• Don’t annoy your site visitors with blinking, rolling, waving, or wandering text or pictures.
• Use animation only where it helps.
• Make illustrations accessible.
• Illustrations can serve many purposes.
• Exact item: What do customers want to see?
• Self-service: What helps people help themselves?
• Process: Will pictures make words memorable?
• Charts, graphs, maps: Do they help site visitors get my message?
• Mood: Which pictures support the conversation?
• Don’t make people wonder what or why.
• Choose an appropriate size.
• Don’t let large pictures push content down too far.
• Make sure small pictures are clear.
• Show diversity.
• To represent your site visitors, think broadly.
• Show your internal diversity, but be truthful.
• Test, test, test.
• Don’t make content look like ads.
• Don’t annoy people with blinking, rolling, waving, or wandering text or pictures.
• Use animation only where it helps.
• Make illustrations accessible.
• Read, edit, revise, proofread your own work.
• Think of writing as revising drafts.
• Read what you wrote.
• Check your links.
• Check your facts.
• Let it rest.
• Read it out loud.
• Use dictionaries, handbooks, style guides.
• Run the spell checker but don’t rely on it.
• Proofread.
• Share drafts with colleagues.
• Accept and learn from the process.
• Work with colleagues to fit the content strategy.
• Share partial drafts.
• Have someone read it out loud.
• Ask what your key message is.
• Pay attention to comments.
• Put your ego in the drawer, cheerfully.
• Let editors help you.
• Get help with the details.
• Get help with the big picture.
• Negotiate successfully reviews (and edits).
• Meet with reviewers at the beginning.
• Practice the doctrine of no surprise.
• Help your reviewers understand good web writing.
• Tell reviewers when the schedule changes.
• Give reviewers a “heads up” a few days in advance.
• Make your expectations clear.
• If you have specific needs, let reviewers know.
• Don’t get defensive.
• Don’t automatically accept changes.
• Rewrite to avoid misunderstandings.
• Persuade.
• Negotiate.
• Communicate.