Team Update: 6 – 17 June 2016

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There’s been a fair bit of holiday in the team over the past couple of weeks. Those of us left behind have been busy getting batch two sites ready to go live.

Go Mobile programme

Fen has been migrating the Pre-Arrival and Faculty of Medical Sciences websites into T4. They are both at the proofing and editing stage. She is working with the Faculty of Medical Sciences to make some amendments and updates to their content, ready for go live next week.

Fen and Jane met with the Pre-Arrival team – they are delighted with their development site and can’t wait to get stuck in on T4! Fen is proofing the site and sourcing images, ready for go live next week.

Andrew has been editing content on the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences website preparing it for go live next week.

Linda has been doing some prep work for the Services for Business website – which is due to go through the Go Mobile transformation in batch four.

Linda checked in with the Alumni team. They’ve been reviewing their new site only a couple of months after go live! Super keen. They’ve got plans to add new content types and develop some of their messaging.

Lisa has been building, editing content and sourcing images for the new Faculty of Medical Sciences Online site.

Emily has been working on the content and structure for the Accommodation website.

Emma C has proofread the new Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia website which goes live next week.

We’ve been planning the batch three sites, lining things up for audits etc.

Design and technical developments

We’ve imported the following sites into T4:

  • Accommodation
  • FMS
  • NUBS
  • Pre-Arrival
  • NICR

Custom analytics and Google Ad tracking has been added to the T4 version of the Business School site.

Peter has modified the standard Events list so they can now be added to tabbed pages.

Campaigns and other developments

The Universal Analytics tracking code update for WordPress sites on microsites.ncl.ac.uk has been passed to the Digital Platforms team to implement.

Linda’s been working with teams in Marketing and Newcastle University London to get content ready for Clearing.

Emma C has been making plans for the next Web Editor Community Event. If your site has been through the Go Mobile process already keep an eye out for the invite coming early next week.

Following queries from editors, Lisa wrote a couple of blogs posts around hyperlinks: To Link or Not to Link – When and Where to Use Hyperlinks and A Quick Guide to…Hyperlinks.

Training and support

Linda, Jane and Lisa delivered Planning and Writing Web Content training.

We’ve received 21 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 12 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

Batch two sites going live in the next couple of weeks:

  • Marine
  • Numed
  • NUBS
  • Accommodation
  • Pre-arrival
  • Civil Engineering
  • FMS Faculty
  • FMS online courses
  • Clearing (1st July)

Quality as Standard: Our Proofreading Checklist

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Every site we build goes through rigorous technical and quality checks before being released into the wild. I’m involved in the quality side as part of the editorial team who are responsible for proofreading the content.

There’s a simple reason for all the checks we do prior to making a site live: visitors to your site will judge you for the mistakes they find. And that judgement could be the difference between recruiting a student or attracting a new member of staff/partner/funder, or not.

Here’s our checklist of things to look out for.

Spelling and grammar

First on the list is a check to make sure there are no typos or spelling mistakes – we get help with this from SiteImprove.

We’ll also check the grammar. A misplaced comma can make a massive difference to the meaning of a sentence.

Clarity and consistency

We’ll check to make sure content is as clear as possible. Sentences and paragraphs should be short. Content should be direct and helpful – if you’re inclined to ramble, beware.

We’re looking for use of plain English. We’ll remove jargon, caveats and unnecessary words.

We’re also looking out for cases of repetition – within the page and across the site.

Currency and accuracy

Part of the proof is to make sure content is current and accurate. When we’re migrating sites we begin with a snapshot of content, and this can often go out of date during the development phase. The most common instance is where deadlines have passed.

Content and editorial standards

We have a set of content and editorial standards that help us maintain consistency across the University website. You can get a flavour of these standards through our quick guides series. Part of our proofreading is to make sure content meets these standards.

Sense check

We always make sure that someone who hasn’t worked on the content before takes on the role of proof reader. This fresh pair of eyes is more likely to spot anything that doesn’t make sense and might confuse the user.

Give it a go

Why not use our proofing checklist to make sure anything you publish on your site meets the web team’s standards. We’ve produced a content quality checklist (PDF: 74KB) to help with this.

A Quick Guide to…Hyperlinks

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Hyperlinks help with reading and navigating online content. They provide users with a next step/further information, support scan-reading and enhance search engine optimisation.

In the latest of our Quick Guide series, here’s a reminder of our best practice for hyperlinks:

Link text

Your link text should be short phrases – don’t link entire sentences.

Link text needs be descriptive of the content you’re linking to so the user has an idea of where they will be taken if they select the link. Phrases such as ‘click here’ or ‘download’ are unhelpful and not accessible – think about someone relying on a screen reader to navigate your content.

Generic phrases hinder search engine optimisation (SEO). Search engines, like users, take notice of link text. It’s therefore important that link text contains keywords and phrases that you want to rank highly for. No one wants to appear at the top of search results for ‘click here’!

Open in the same browser

Hyperlinks should always open in the same browser tab/window. We leave it up to the user to decide whether they want to open a new tab/window.

Links must work

It sounds obvious but hyperlinks must be checked regularly to make sure they work. My colleagues laugh at me as I often quote Kara Pernice (Nielsen Norman Group) that a broken link is like a broken promise. However, I personally feel disappointed and frustrated when I select a link on a website that turns out to be broken, or if takes me to an unexpected place.

Broken links can damage your credibility to users and won’t help search engine optimisation, as search engines respond to well linked sites.

Related posts

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

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.