Web Journalism Guide
04-Dec-02
Writing effective text for the Web is more than just stringing words together and hoping for the best. It goes beyond just conveying information. If you really want to capture the interest and engagement of your users and members, the text needs to do much more. Ideally, you want your writing to:
- attract their attention
- grab their interest
- pull them into the content
- add real value to their work
- make then want to register or return, and
- increase their sense of trust in your community.
These consideration apply whether you're writing an editorial, news item, announcement, feature article, or forum posting.
Skimming instead of reading is a fact of the Web and has been confirmed by countless usability studies. Web writers have to acknowledge this fact and write for scannability.
Structure articles with two or even three levels of headlines. Nested headings also facilitate access for blind users with screen readers. Use meaningful rather than "cute" headings.
Brevity
Be brief and to the point. Web users are looking for solid, helpful information and/or advice on well targeted topics. Most of what they need to know about the topic can be concisely covered in the web equivalent of two or three printed pages. In fact, much can be covered in just one focused page.
Information
The information must be organized well to ensure ease of navigation and usability. Remember to view your SIG site from your visitors perspective.
Highlight the information which your visitors would find interesting and not that which you consider important. Group similar batches of information together, and keep the navigation consistent throughout the SIG site. Do not build a menu with countless choices on your SIG site. This would bewilder and confuse the visitors and they would leave without exploring further.
Title
Start with a punchy, attention-grabbing Title. 'Latest insights from our Euro correspondent' is much more attractive than 'Minor changes in the monetary and fiscal systems'.
- Don't use capitals in the title of your article. In general keep the use of capitals to a minimum as it's not considered good internet etiquette TO SHOUT
- Don't change the colour of your titles
- Keep titles as short and as snappy as possible
A good abstract and/or synopsis will encourage people to read your article, but try not to make it too long as it can make your page look strange, and can reduce the number of articles appearing on your index page forcing people to click through to the second page.
It's usually best to write a special short summary that gives overview of the article for the synopsis field. Also watch out for extra spaces at the end of your summary as this will add extra white space to your index page. A long synopsis will reduce the number of articles that are displayed on your index page, and it should only be an overview of the article to encourage people to click on the link and read on.
If you do not enter a synopsis then the default text displayed will be the first few lines of text of your articles which looks messy.
Preparing the full article
Writing the Body Text the first paragraph should always contain the key points. Don't bother with any lengthy preamble. Web readers want the information directly. In particular, they don't want to have to scroll down the page. Any content which requires scrolling is called "below the fold" (it's a newspaper term to describe the lower half), and will probably never be seen by 80% of your readers. So get the core information into the first paragraph.
The second and third paragraphs might contain supporting information. Again, to help readers grasp this quickly, you should consider using bullet points and lists. Put any longer explanation or background briefing towards the end, so that people can find it if they really want it.
Embedding links
Embedding links is always a good way to refer or to outsource additional information. Consider the following when using embedded links:
- Do not place long link addresses directly within the text. It forces the page out of alignment, and will break it. Instead link a single word as click to the targeted address.
- Do NOT overload your text with links
- (The following applies to KB SIG editors only!)Whenever you enter an article via the Content Management System (CMS) the there is a link to 'HTML tips' in the CMS which gives you some basic HTML formatting tips.
In the body of your story try and keep paragraphs quite short. A large block of text on a page can be hard to read so don't be afraid to break it up into smaller pieces to make it more readable.
Means of attractiveness
Text alone is a relatively boring medium for presenting your information. There are many simple tricks and means which engage the reader with your content:
- Don't play with the colour of your Iedits or in articles. From a usability perspective a title is a link and it is best to keep them the same colour site wide
- A colour scheme for a Web site usually consists of one or two principal or foundation colours and an accent colour or two. Avoid using colour as a visual cue. However, if you need to use colour as a visual cue, make sure that you have provided adequate alternate cues
- Design your site initially in black and white, adding colour only to the final design. This is not only helpful in designing a user-friendly site for colour blind users but is always an excellent and effective design technique
- Add a photograph, perhaps of a speaker, building, or book relevant to your story. If an author of a story has a who's who record then by using the who's who link it will automatically cross reference the story to their record. You can find out if they have a record by clicking on 'Select Who's Who' entry and doing a search on their last name. Where you can cross reference articles to Who's who records. This is a great piece of community functionality which we should use as much as possible
- Make sure there is strong contrast between the background and foreground text or graphics
