Fruit Flies Like a Banana: Writing Unambiguously

Ambiguity has a way of creeping into your writing without your noticing it. Here are five of the biggest culprits.

Henning, Kathy. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Writing>Web Design

Get That "One Thing" Into Your Web Page Headline

If you are presenting a risk-free trial of something...get that message into your headline. This may sound obvious, but while we were testing various offer pages, it became clear that the winning pages all had headlines which were focused on the offer, and were very much reader and benefit centered.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Give Your Testimonials More Credibility

I think that the people who give the testimonials do so for the additional exposure they receive for their own names, sites and businesses. I also think they do some mutual back-scratching, and hype each other's products and services. In other words, the testimonials are just additional sales text. They have no credibility as outside, third-party endorsements.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Writing>Web Design>Marketing

Good Writing on Your Web Site: How and Why You Should Ensure the Quality of Your Content

Discusses the importance of writing well and some simple methods for ensuring your content is well-written and then move on to ways clever content-management systems can make your life easier.

Mercurytide (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Google: The Ultimate Web Writer's Style Guide

Forget that Google is a search engine. Just for a moment, imagine it is a style guide. A very different kind of style guide.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Guerilla Upgrades: Start with Your Newsletter

Persuading your managers to allow some testing in the tone and voice of a newsletter isn’t half as hard as persuading them to make changes to your site’s homepage.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Review: Hot Text: Web Writing That Works

This book will help you improve any type of written communication, and it's a fun read to boot. The authors know what they're talking about and have the experience to back up their words. Both have spent many years writing for Web audiences. In addition to Web writing, their combined relevant experience includes journalism, technical communication, art, TV and radio, and teaching.

Frick, Geri. TECHWR-L (2004). Articles>Reviews>Web Design>Writing

Review: Hot Text: Web Writing That Works  

When it comes to mentors in technical communication, Jonathan Price is as good as they get. If he were a novelist, I might describe his stuff with words like salty, earthy, and gut-level. What he provides is different from cold theory, and certainly not the same as statistics. It's street-smart. When Price talks, you know he's been there and done that, and you've got him sitting beside you as you work, helping you through the pitfalls, urging you on.

Sullivan, Bill. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Reviews>Web Design>Writing

How to Write A Better Weblog

Great writing can’t be taught, but bad writing can be avoided. Mahoney shares tips that may enhance the writing on your personal site.

Mahoney, Dennis A. List Apart, A (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

How to Write a Summary, and Why

The first text in most web and intranet pages should be a summary of 1-2 sentences. That's a good rule of thumb. The starter-summary has several important functions.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace

This succinct introduction is an example of the inverted pyramid style: starting with the conclusion. If I wanted to write a column about frames I would continue with one or two examples of why frames suck (can't bookmark or print a view) and conclude with a discussion of the fundamental issues (frames impair the user's navigation and break the fundamental user model of the Web as being composed of unitary pages).

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Is Your Web Site Old and Out of Touch?

A great many changes are taking place online right now. This is particularly true when you are trying to reach and sell to potential customers who are up-to-date with new technologies and ways of using the web. I'm thinking of the people who download podcasts to their iPods.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Podcasting

Is Your Website Poised to Deal With Its Growth?  

Every webmaster nourishes the dream that his or her website will make it the big way. This is very much human because people carry out any task in ardent hope. What is more human out here is that earthy fellows like us base our aspirations more on speculation rather than specific set of steps undertaken to bring the dream a bit closer to reality. And this is not all, particularly in case of growth of a site which brings newer problems in the wake of its growth. It cannot be disputed that you can probably get some good web hosting on economy price. But if you expect top of the line service on this price, acknowedge gracefully that your are just asking for the moon. Probably you are not catching up with wisdom that business needs decisive investments.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Documentation>Web Design>Technical Writing

It's Only Words

Today, at least in this country, most government and corporate organisations are well aware that words online matter. A lot. Even when the technology is perfect, words can make or break the success of a web site or intranet. So sure, words now get due respect in many quarters.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Government

It's Time to Invest in the Message

Business online has invested billions of dollars in the technology that delivers its messages. The trouble is, it has invested almost nothing in the messages themselves.

Usborne, Nick. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Just Say No to Dead Fragments

A dead fragment of text is what's left after a usability expert has had his or her way with some perfectly good copy. The process works a little like this... First, take some great text that engages the reader on a number of levels. Here are a few words from Martin Luther King, Jr.: 'I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.' Now cut that back to make it more 'usable': 'Have sons judged by character and not color.' What are you left with? A brief, but dead, fragment. The substance of the communication remains, but the soul has been ripped out of it.

Usborne, Nick. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Writing>Usability>Web Design

The Labyrinth Unbound: Weblogs as Literature

While the weblog tends toward esoterically personal content (as evidence in the examples above) and often delivers some contextual account of the author’s life and activities, the obvious exceptions to this rule preclude understanding the form simply as an online diary. Likewise, the structural and technical definitions many in the weblogging community focus on fall equally short of describing what is a complex, earnest, and distinct literary form. In other words, it is insufficient to explore the weblog exclusively at the level of content, and equally insufficient to focus wholly on the technical delivery of that content. Accounting for the diversity of weblogs and webloggers—yet still maintaining some larger sense of what they have in common—requires instead a careful look both at what weblogs do, and how they do it for both writers and readers.

Himmer, Steve. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Language: The Ultimate User Interface

Words. Language. Meaning. They’re a nutritious part of your complete website. So why do so many webmakers treat language like an afterthought?

Hayden, Julia. List Apart, A (2000). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Lengthen Your Planning and Shorten Your Text

Writing for the Web requires your old skills, but you must change your approach and alter the writing process.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Link Location That Works

Where to put links on a web page? That's a standard dilemma for content writers. Best to establish a policy and make sure all writers on your site follow it. That has an added advantage of standardising the 'look' of your pages.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Hypertext>Writing

Listen To Me, Not Jakob Nielsen

A response to Jakob Nielsen's 2007 "Write Articles, Not Blog Postings." Nielsen's article is also chock-full of bad information. Why bad? Because most of it is made up. The length of the article requires you to really read it. You can't scan it. The problem is, most people scan online.

Oliphant, Matthew. Usabilityworks.org (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Local Input Critical for Global Web Content Success

Let's face it. People on the web are only out for themselves. They come to your site, and you have a time window of less than 30 seconds to convince them to stay.

Iler, Huiping. WTB Language Group (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Long or Short Copy? Part 1

I've alternatively praised both long and short copy. In some columns, I have extolled the personal touch you can achieve through longer, more conversational text. In others I have pointed out that short, active text is your best bet for directing readers and maximizing conversion rates. There's no real contradiction here. Sometimes long copy will do the best job for you; other times you'll be better off using short copy.

Usborne, Nick. ClickZ (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Long vs. Short Articles as Content Strategy

Information foraging shows how to calculate your content strategy's costs and benefits. A mixed diet that combines brief overviews and comprehensive coverage is often best.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Writing

Low Bandwidth and the Highs of Web Design

The emergence of Internet was, and still is a fascinating thing to happen in technology firmament. The ease and the comforts of connecting to people, defying geographical boundaries, and getting a global audience for businesses were unparalleled -- first of its kind ever. So wonderful a thing has, unfortunately, got its share of woes -- the connection speed. The bandwidth of Internet connectivity was considerable at the time when it was entirely new to the world. The newness of the medium did not let it know to the excited lots of users and beneficiaries. Gradually, when people wished for more speed, they earnestly expected that things will turn favorable in the times ahead. Strategy is not something entirely applicable to chart out the direction of a corporation. Yeah, Your web design has to be strategized as well if you wish to serve your target audience in business friendly manner.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>Technical Writing>User Centered Design