Website Usability

Clarity

Writing for the web means that you have to be a good organizer. The information that you will place on your page for the whole world to see must be carefully organized. Use words that make sense to the audience. Use simple, meaningful language.

Check your spelling (use a spell checker). You wouldn't want your readers to encounter something like "Our software provides state-of-the-art soultions that "?.

Use correct grammar. Make sure that you know the difference between "it's" (contracted form of "it is" or "it has") and "its" (possessive pronoun, 3rd person singular), between "you're" (contracted form of "you are") and "your" (possessive pronoun, 2n person singular and plural), or between "they're" (contracted form of "they are"), "there" (adverb of place, antonym of "here"), and "their" (possessive pronoun, 3rd person plural). These examples may sound a bit "too much", but you'd be surprised how often they occur.

Avoid word play (puns), euphemisms and metaphors: you could be taken literally. Also, think of your non-native speaker audience. If you have to have abbreviations in your text, use only the standard ones. If you use your own abbreviations, explain them (between brackets), at least once in the beginning.

Quantity

Since web users are usually people in a hurry, they need information that can be seized easily. Limit each paragraph to only one idea (topic sentences). Be concise: web readers prefer short texts, from which they can extract the information with minimal effort. Studies show that web reading is slower than regular reading by 25%. The information that you offer must be condensed enough to fit in one screen. Users don't enjoy scrolling too much. They want to get the information fast, so web texts must have half the word count used when writing for print.

Relevance

Do not overcharge your page with information. Provide only what is necessary. The text that you write for the web page must be relevant for the target audience, organized in an intuitive manner. The short bits of text that constitute your paragraphs must be self-explanatory, so that your readers will understand your point on the spot and will not require much mental effort to do that, or additional information to support them.

Style

• Verbs
  Use active verbs (provide, assess, implement, focus, validate, etc.) rather than passive ones (is being done, are solved, were built). Active verbs give a sense of vivacity to the text, which becomes more energetic and powerful.


• Pronouns
  Use "you" rather than "I", "we". Like this you will show readers that they are the target, and your text will have a greater impact on them.


• Language
  Use easily understandable language, with familiar, everyday words, short and simple sentences.
  Avoid jargon by all means: jargon is usually technical or abbreviated and difficult to understand for people not in the profession.
  Establish a balance between promotional (marketing) style and the useful information that you include in your text. For example, when writing a presentation web page for a product, it is understandable that it is meant to help sell the product. Nevertheless, avoid marketing exaggerations and overstatements. Too much enthusiasm can be a turn-off. Refrain from using (too much) humor. All Web users have different perceptions on humorous instances.


• Keywords
  Identify the keywords in your text. Highlight them to add to the scannability of the text and to add to the probability of your web page being found much easier when searching the Web.


• Graphics
  Graphical elements must complement text. Insert only images that have relevance to the text, and avoid full-page graphics, as they can take quite a while to load and this gets users annoyed.

It is not easy to learn how to write for the Web in an appropriate, professional manner. In principle, if you respect at least the most important principles according to which this activity can be performed, you may find yourself on the right track. Whenever you have to write something for the web, remember that people may not want to spend long minutes or even hours to read everything you have to say on a particular topic. They do not have, or don't want to have, time to waste on reading long, exhaustive paragraphs, as they want only the "cold facts".

Web texts should be like the instructions for microwave food:

• Insert food in oven
• Heat for x seconds
• Serve

Users prefer summaries or "inverted pyramid" style texts. Start with the conclusion, and then continue with the details. Thus you are sure that if the users gets bored along the way and close the web page, at least there's something they have already read and from which they could actually benefit.

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