Author Archives: Jiajun

To Link or Not to Link – When and Where to Use Hyperlinks

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We’ve recently had a couple of questions from web editors about hyperlinks – particularly about whether to include the same link more than once on a webpage.

This post will focus on when, and when not, to use hyperlinks and where you should try and place them on a page.

Helpful content

When writing web content your aim should be to help your user find the answer to their question or complete a task.

Hyperlinks help with this because they:

  • give active instructions
  • support scan-reading
  • offer further information or a next step

It’s important to only link to relevant content that supports the messages on your page, or helps your user complete their task or answers their questions.

Careful placement

As well as thinking carefully about what you link to, you should also think carefully about where within your content you should link from.

Think about the primary message – what do you need to convey to your audience before they leave your page? If you add hyperlinks too early then you run the risk of your user leaving before they’ve had a chance to read your content.

Hit targets

Mobile has changed the placement of hyperlinks on a page as you now need to think about hit targets. Don’t have too many hyperlinks together as this will make it harder for the user to select them.

You should also try and add hyperlinks at the end of paragraphs and sentences. Again this helps with hit targets and increases the likelihood of your user reading your content before clicking a hyperlink and being taken elsewhere.

Avoid duplicating links on a page

It can be tempting to duplicate links on a page. Hoa Loranger (Nielsen Norman group) points out that people often think that duplicate links provide “alternative ways to access links” and “safety nets”.

However, too many calls to action on the same page can confuse users.

“Each additional link places an extra load on users’ working memory because it causes people to have to remember whether they have seen the link before or if is a new link.“

Hoa Loranger Nielsen Norman group (NNg)

In addition, duplicate links can be harmful to the user experience:

“Extra links waste users time whenever users don’t realise that two links lead to the same place.”

Hoa Loranger Nielsen Norman group (NNg)

Loranger also points out that that “each additional link depletes users’ attention because it competes with all others.”

So rather than providing a safety net you’re potentially reducing the likelihood of the user spotting the link.

Instead of adding duplicate links on a page, Loranger argues that where you place the link is more important.

“Making a link more noticeable by placing it prominently in an expected location on the page can yield better results than duplicating it elsewhere on the same page”

Hoa Loranger Nielsen Norman group (NNg)

Summary

To link or not to link? As always it depends on your content as to whether you should include a hyperlink on a webpage, and where on the page you should place it.

Think carefully about the purpose of your page to help decide whether to add a hyperlink to relevant content, and how early on you should include one.

However, try not to include more than one link to the same content on any webpage as this can be harmful to usability.

Related posts

References and further reading

Hoa Loranger, The Same Link Twice on the Same Page: Do Duplicates Help or Hurt? Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 13 March 2016

Kathryn Whitenton, Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 22 December 2013

Jennifer Cardello, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), Four Dangerous Navigation Approaches that Can Increase Cognitive Strain, 28 September 2013

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Team update: 23 May – 3 June 2016

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It’s been a busy couple of weeks – read on to find out what we’ve been up to.

Go Mobile programme

We’ve been getting the next batch of sites ready to migrate into T4:

  • Fen and Emily are ploughing through Accommodation
  • Andrew and Steve have been hard at work on pre-migration tagging of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
  • Andrew has also done the site audit for the School of Psychology, which is one the sites we will be migrating to T4 in Batch 3 of Go Mobile. He’s also working on the initial site map for the Institute of Cellular Management ahead of pre-migration tagging
  • Emma C is tackling the Business School
  • Fen and Jane are working on a new sitemap for Pre-Arrival

Lisa is working with colleagues in the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FMS) on a new site for their online courses, while Fen is preparing the current FMS website for migration into T4.

Design and Technical developments

Catherine has been setting up some of the batch two sites in the pre-migration template and has imported the Civil Engineering and Geosciences into T4. She has also been working on colour schemes for the batch two sites.

Campaigns and other developments

Emma C is working with colleagues in Marketing and Student Recruitment to plan homepage messaging for the Clearing campaign. She’s also been helping the Press Office with development of the About the University site.

Training and support

Linda and Emma C ran a fully subscribed day of training on planning and writing web content.

Lisa ran a fully subscribed Website Media Management training session.

This week Anne’s delivered the first T4 CMS Basics workshop in our new training room, and also tested out a new half-day session for Careers staff, which focuses on managing News, Events and Staff in T4.

We’ve received 36 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 6 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

We will be continuing work on batch 2 sites to get them ready for their Go Live date of 24 June.

Andrew and Lisa are currently preparing to deliver the next Planning and Writing Web Content training sessions.

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A Quick Guide to…Expandable Content

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Expandable content allows you to show and hide information on a webpage.

This content type can be useful to reduce page length; particularly if content is only relevant to a specific audience.

An example of this can be found on the Open Day website. Expandable boxes have been used on the travel page to allow users to quickly access information relevant to their chosen mode of transport. This saves them from reading information about all of the ways to travel to the University.

The biggest drawback with an expandable box is that it’s an extra click to see information so I’ve summarised our standards for using them in our quick guide to…

Expandable content

You should never hide essential information inside an expandable box as you can’t guarantee that users will click to see the content.

When adding expandable content to a page you should:

  • include a descriptive title – you need to encourage the user to expand the box
  • keep the title to a maximum of 30 characters
  • make sure content within the box is shorter than the main content of the page
  • include no more than 100 characters within an expandable box
  • make sure the content is written for the web

You should also try to use expandable boxes at the end of a page as they act as a visual break in the content. We found in user testing that people often don’t expect content to follow expandable boxes and so they stop scrolling.

Related posts

For more advice on when to use this content type see my post: Hide or not to Hide: When to use Expandable Content.

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Editing Other People’s Content

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So you’ve attended our Writing for the Web training and you know all about the inverted pyramid and writing concise, scannable web content. Now you’re faced with a request to add some new content to the website…

It’s a wall of text – full of long sentences, a lot of jargon and it’s about a topic that you don’t have any subject knowledge of. A feeling of dread washes over you, questions start racing through your mind. How will I prioritise the information? How can I shorten sentences when I don’t really understand them? What are the important points that I need to emphasise with bold or a bulleted list?

In our recent Writing Web Content training there were a few questions about how to edit other people’s content – particularly how to prioritise and edit complex content.

In Corporate Web Development (CWD) we face this challenge on a daily basis. In this post I’m going to share my top five tips for editing other people’s content.

1. Find out the purpose of the content

For any webpage you create you need to know why you’re creating the page and how it fits into your site purpose.

You need to be able to answer the following questions:

  • who am I creating this page for? (your users)
  • what do the users want to find out? (their questions/tasks)
  • what does the organisation want the user to do after reading your content? (business goals)

Without these answers you’ll struggle to edit the content so it’s important to speak to the subject-expert or the person who provided the content.

Discuss with content author

Set up a meeting with, or speak to, the author of the content so that you can find out the purpose of the content.

“initial face-to-face or verbal briefings need to give content creators an understanding of where their work will sit in terms of the wider project and give them the chance to ask initial questions”

Jackie Kingsley, Sticky Content

Armed with the knowledge of who the users are, their tasks, and what the author wants to achieve, you’ll have the confidence to start prioritising and reconfiguring the content for the web – and deleting any unnecessary words!

It’s also important to get the agreed content purpose in writing and send to all involved. This acts as a written record so that you have something to refer to when editing and it makes it clear and transparent for everyone involved.

2. Agree deadlines

It’s important to agree on specific deadlines.

“It’s impossible to keep your content production slick and manageable without well-enforced deadlines”

Rhiannon Jones, Sticky Content

There might be deadlines for:

  • completing a first pass edit and sending content back to the author
  • the author and stakeholders to send amends
  • the author and stakeholders to sign off content
  • content to go live on the site

Again getting deadlines in writing (even if it’s just an email) gives you a written record to refer back to. Then, if additional content is needed or if the author misses the deadline for sign-off, the record shows there will be an impact on content going live.

3. Take ownership of the content

When editing other people’s content all the rules of writing for the web still apply. Often as editors we can feel nervous about changing someone else’s words but it’s important not to fall back into the role of a content-putter-upper.

You’re the one publishing the content so it’s important that you take ownership of it. Remember you will probably know more about writing for the web than the author so it’s up to you to edit the information so that it’ll work across devices.

Proofreading

If possible, get someone else to check the content after editing and before sending back to the author.

“In an ideal world no one will proof copy they have created. That’s because it’s extremely difficult to see your own mistakes”

Jackie Kingsley, Sticky Content

Again, if you’ve got the purpose of the content from the author in writing you can use this at the proofing stage.

“Content can also be checked against the written brief during the QA process”

Jackie Kingsley, Sticky Content

4. Ask the author to check for accuracy only

When you send the content back to the author for sign off, ask them to check for accuracy only. It’s important that the facts are correct, which may have been misinterpreted through the nature of editing. However, you don’t want lots of opinions about style, tone or format as the content has already been edited for the web.

I often find it helpful to compile a document of any content gaps or questions that I’ve come across while editing the content. You can also use this document to explain any editing choices you’ve made and why the edited content works better for different devices. Again, a written record makes everything clear and transparent.

5. Schedule time to review content

Often content is edited and polished before it’s published but then after it goes lives it’s left to languish on the site. Links become broken and content becomes out of date – resulting in frustrated users and the credibility of the site being questioned.

So whatever the content you’re editing, however small it might be, make sure you schedule in time to review it. Speak to the author about whether it is still relevant to their business goals and their users’ tasks.

Share your tips

And that’s my whistle stop tour of editing other people’s content.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve got a challenging editing situation, or share your tips for editing other people’s content.

Further reading and references

Related posts

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Team Update: 1 – 12 February 2016

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It’s that time again – read on to find out what we’ve been up to over the past couple of weeks.

Go Mobile programme

The Science Central website went live on Friday 5 February.

We’ve handed over the Employers site to the site editors who are currently working on the content in T4 and sourcing new assets.

Jane and Lisa are building and tagging up the Careers website to get it ready for migration to T4. They’re also doing a first pass edit of the content to get it ready to hand over to site editors.

We’re planning the induction of some of our new starters (March 2016) – there’s a lot for them to learn about working in our team and the Go Mobile programme.

We’ll be advertising for one more Web Content Officer role in the next few weeks.

Skills development

Gareth and Emma B have completed their project management training – they and are now fully-fledged Certified Scrum Masters and Agile Practitioners. Well done Gareth and Emma!

Over the next few months, we will be looking at how we can change our methods of working to adopt Agile principles with the aim of making our work faster and easier for everyone.

Office Move – all change!

A quick heads up that the Corporate Web Team will be relocating in mid-March from Level 5 of Kings Gate to the ground floor of the Daysh Building in the space formerly occupied by Combined Honours. This ties in with our need to work in an Agile way. We’re therefore moving to a more collaborative space where our progress can be made visible on walls and whiteboards.

The new office will also mean that we can more easily assemble as a team every day to monitor progress and troubleshoot problems. We will of course let everyone know when we have a firm date for the move.

Design and Technical developments

The Video Wall and Central Virtual Tours website went live on 11 February. The Virtual Tours website now includes optimised versions of the tours that work on mobile devices.

Campaigns and web developments

Steve has been working on a recruitment website for the new batch of Graduate Ambassadors – Join the Team, which went live last week.

Training and support

We ran our first web editor community event on Wednesday 3 February. This session was for editors whose sites have been through the Go Mobile treatment and are now live. We shared some tips for using the new content management system and looked at some content types that we’ve developed since we began the programme.

Find out what one of the editors who attended the event thought in our Go Mobile web editor community event guest post.

So far, we’ve received 35 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 15 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

Over the next few weeks we’ll be busy getting ready for our office move and continuing work on the first batch of sites in Phase 2 of Go Mobile.

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