STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES A Book Review of Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny Reddish) DDD Self –Directed Time January 27, 2012

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 3/9/2016page 1 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

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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.” 3/9/2016 page 2

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES What makes writing for the web work well?  It’s like a conversation.  It answers people’s questions.  It lets people grab and go. 3/9/2016 page 3

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 4

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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?) 3/9/2016 page 5

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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?) 3/9/2016 page 6

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 7

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Three types of web pages  This book is mostly about writing information pages. 3/9/2016 page 8

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 9

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 10

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 11

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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: 3/9/2016 page 12

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 13

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 14

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 15

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 16

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 17

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 18

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 19

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 20

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 21

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 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 3/9/2016 page 22

STANFORD UNIVERSITY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Chapters left to read  Using illustrations effectively  Writing meaningful links  Getting from draft to final web pages 3/9/2016 page 23