Repurposing Copy for the Internet
 Structure
Copy on the internet ideally uses the same structure as news writing,
an inverted pyramid. The most important information needs to come at
the beginning and the least important at the end. The text may run below
the bottom of the visible screen and if the main points aren’t
immediately visible the reader is going to go elsewhere.
The text should be kept short because web users have been found to dislike
scrolling. There are times when you need to keep a certain amount of
length to make your points but even then you should consider chunking
the text onto different web pages linked by buttons or hypertext. Do
it theme by theme rather than just keeping the article linear and joined
by sequential hypertext links.
Try to keep paragraphs short and provide structure with subheadings.
This means the reader can quickly scan down the page to items of interest.
Structured headings are good news for users with disabilities using
text readers. On web pages short paragraphs mean extra white space and
greater readability. Bullets can sometimes be a better way of presenting
the information more legibly and more quickly.
In print you can get away with 10 to 12 words per line (any more than
that and your peripheral vision loses track between the end of one line
and the beginning of the next) but on screen you should try to keep
to around 8 words (40 characters) per line.
Text is remembered better if it is combined with a suitable picture
to help anchor it in the reader’s memory. This is not surprising
when you consider that visualisation and imagery are used for popular
memorising and revision techniques such as mind maps.
Style
Marketing speak is a big turn off to web users. The medium is such an
instant one that the surfers have little patience for pretty much anything
they don’t like. If you are reading a newspaper you may not have
any others to hand, but with the web you can click back to other search
results for a topic with little delay.
It’s not only paragraphs and articles that should be kept short,
sentences should be kept short too. The web also tends to be less of
a formal medium and more of a colloquial one, so the language used tends
not to be as formal.
Generally, web headlines and links to articles should be clear and to
the point. Teaser headlines and links to elicit curiousness may fall
flat, so you have to consider your type of publication and your audience
very carefully before you even think about using them.
A good general rule for web presentation is don’t write anything
that makes unnecessary demands on the reader - that can include plays
on words and metaphors. The web is a very literal medium.
Rationale
While paper reflects light, screens emit light making them more tiring
for eyes to look at. Screens also have to refresh which can cause flickering.
A screen has a lower resolution (number of dots that make up the characters
and pictures) than the printed item. These factors reduce readability.
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group says that
research has shown that reading from screen is about 25 per cent slower
than reading from paper. He also claims that people report feelings
of unpleasantness when reading on screen. As a guideline he recommends
that you write 50 per cent less than you would in print to take these
findings into account.
|
