Writing articles for the web.
The Design Need:
You want to offer an article online to your users. It is fatiguing to read on a screen due to the fact that screens give off light and do not have the same resolution as printed media.
Best Practice Examples:
Adjust the writing style and layout to cater for online reading behaviour. Basically it boils down to writing concise and well-structured articles.
Reversed pyramid
Put the most important things first in the article: title, conclusion & summary (1st paragraph), content, background and extra information. Go into more detail in every next level.
Provide multi-stage information so users who do not want all the information can leave whenever they have reached their level of detail.
The 1st sentence of a paragraph must describe the goal of the paragraph. This helps users when they are scanning the text.
Chunking
To avoid a “wall of text”, divide text into short paragraphs. Each paragraph should consist of an introductory sentence and a topic. This helps to create an overview of the offered content.
Use whitespace wisely to separate the different paragraphs and to group elements. Using whitespace wisely creates a clean and neatly arranged text. But don’t overdo it; too much whitespace creates unnecessary scrolling.
The size of the paragraph should be no more than 5 to 7 lines or +/- 6 sentences. Each sentence should be no longer than +/- 20 words. Do not use complex sentences, with several sub-sentences, but keep it simple.
Titles
Use clear and descriptive titles for your articles. If the title is to be shown as a link to the article it is important that it describes the content. See the best practice “Writing headings and links” for detailed advice.
Be consistent in the use of titles. If the title is used as a link to the article it must be identical to the title used above the article.
Keywords and subtitles
Keywords and subtitles help the user to scan the text for important information. They guide the user through. They also provide an early idea of the content that is provided.
Stress elements
Use typography and layout elements to stress important items in your text, such as keywords. You can use things such as size, position, colour and font styles. Watch out when using the font styles ‘underline’, used for links, and ‘italic’ (large sections of italic are difficult to read).
Lists
Use lists to structure the content where possible. If you use lists, make sure all items start with an informative word. But again do not overdo it, since too many lists take away the effect.
Content
Use the language used by the reader where possible. Write concisely and descriptively. An online article should be approximately ½ the amount of words of an offline article.
Watch out when using acronyms and sarcasm in online texts. These are often misinterpreted or not understood.
Why To use this Best Practice:
Since users read differently online than offline it is best to cater for this behaviour when writing online articles.
How do we read?
We scan pages for words and sentences that catch the eye. We do not read word by word. The most important reasons for scanning behaviour are:
- Reading on a computer screen is tiring and slower than on paper
- Online articles compete with many other pages/articles only a few clicks away
- Users look for interesting content, and scanning helps to determine priorities.
Users “satisfice”, they click the first option they see that might take them to their goal. Users do this because:
- They can go back easily (back-button)
- Users often do not get a better result after careful consideration
- Guessing is more fun
