Tag Archives: writing for the web

Writing Plain English Does Not Dumb Down Content

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The difficulty we face as a University web team is a fear that rewriting content for the web will somehow ‘dumb down’ the message.

 “If we write in ‘plain English’ we’re in danger of making ourselves look stupid. People won’t expect this from a university”

 

“We’re writing for our academic peers: they understand the terms we use.”

We hear these sorts of comments a lot. If you are writing for a website you need to dismiss them right now.

This is not the content YOU are looking for

Anyone can visit our website. We shouldn’t be excluding audiences based on their understanding of English. Who are we to decide who can or can’t access our ideas?

Think about those students or (high-quality) researchers who may not have English as their first language. Don’t make it hard for them to understand your content.

What about those with dyslexia or those using assistive technologies (like screen readers) to access the site?

And hey, what about you, wouldn’t you rather read something you understood at first glance (even if you are a specialist in that area)?

Remember:

No one will ever complain that you’ve made things too simple to understand.
Ann Handley

Plain English and why it’s important

Plain English at Newcastle University

In our Writing for the Web training we introduce the idea of using plain English. We encourage our content editors to:

  • write clear and direct content
  • be concise
  • reduce (or at least explain) jargon
  • use simple words in short sentences
  • use the language of your reader

All of these things make reading online easier for our audiences. They are how to write plain English.

Plain English Campaign

There’s a campaign for Plain English. The problems of complex words and long sentences are found in all sorts of sectors not just academic circles:

  • marketing
  • business
  • law
  • sciences
  • medicine
  • government

The Plain English Campaign highlights areas where their work has had particular success.

What we don’t want is to be a recipient of the Golden Bull Award  – each year the campaign highlights the worst written communication they’ve seen!

GOV.UK

The public face of government information has been transformed recently. GOV.UK is clear, well-written and helps people understand complex information. They are huge advocates of plain English.

They’ve published a blog post on using plain English:  “It’s not dumbing down, it’s opening up“.

Writing to support plain English

We’ve written lots of blog posts on improving content – most have hints about using plain English in them:

Resources and articles

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Decluttering Your Website: How to Prepare for Go Mobile

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As we embark on phase 2 of Go Mobile, eager editors across the University are asking when their site will be going through the process. We’re thrilled that our editors are keen to get started.

We’re still finalising the schedule for phase 2. In the meantime, there’s plenty you can do to prepare your site for Go Mobile. In fact, the more you do beforehand the easier the process will be.

Delete, delete, delete

One of the most useful tasks you can do to prepare for Go Mobile is to delete any clutter from your site. Delete old versions of documents, images and logos that you’re no longer linking to in your content.

Similarly, delete old news and events items that are no longer relevant. If this information is still needed, rework it. For example, you could write a review of an event that has already taken place.

Check the currency of your content and consider whether it’s still relevant.

If content is out of date and no longer relevant to your site purpose it’s best to delete it. For more information about how out of date information can harm your website read Jane’s blog post: Why Deleting Old Stuff on Your Website is Good.

Check the accuracy of your content

It might seem like a dull task but ensuring that your content is accurate is crucial to the credibility of your site.

Users will be less likely to trust what you say if your content is littered with spelling and grammar mistakes, or if a link leads to nothing but a dead end. As pointed out by Kara Pernice from the Neilsen Norman Group, a link is a promise.

Tools like Siteimprove can help to find broken links and misspellings on your site.

Improve readability

The easier content is to understand the more accessible your message will be to your target audience.

Online readers are more task-focused and tend to scan content rather than read it all. Smaller screens increase this behaviour. So it’s essential to optimise your content for a smaller screen so that users can understand your content on any device they view it on. Part of this involves deleting unnecessary words.

For advice on optimising content for mobile take a look at our top five tips for writing for the web. An effective tool for identifying the readability of your writing is the Hemingway Editor.

Source new assets

As you’ll find out when you attend our Website Media Management training, images need to be larger in the new template. This is so that they retain their quality across all devices.

The majority of images that currently exist on your site won’t be big enough to work in the new template. Sourcing the original images will therefore give you a head start for when your site goes through Go Mobile. Check our Go Mobile Demo site for an idea of the new image sizes.

Go Mobile is an opportunity to check that your imagery is effectively supporting your messages. For guidance on sourcing imagery read Jane’s blog post on improving your website images and videos. For advice about editing images read Emma’s post: Editing Images for Use on Your Website.

Insights into Go Mobile

Find extra tips from editors who have already been through the Go Mobile process in our series of guest posts. Fiona Simmons from the Institute of Social Renewal talks about her experience of Go Mobile. Ivan Lazarov from the Press Office shares his reflections on the Go Mobile training.

Summary

So that’s a whistle stop tour of how you can prepare your site for Go Mobile. The most helpful thing you can do is to review your content. Make sure it will be readable on a mobile phone and delete old content and assets that are no longer relevant to your messages. Go forth and declutter!

Get in touch

Let us know in the comments if you have any questions about preparing your site for Go Mobile.

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Improving Page Titles and Headlines

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Linda recently posted about how meaningful titles and descriptions engage site visitors. Her post covered the importance of micro content in enticing people to read your content – particularly since content is displayed differently depending on the device used.

In this post I’m going to focus on how you can improve page titles and headlines to help people find your page and encourage them to read it.

Page titles should be clear and descriptive

Page titles help convey your primary message; its important they are clear and descriptive. This is so that your reader can quickly see what your page is about.

As argued by Jakob Nielsen, online headlines are different to printed headlines because they are used in different ways.

“In print a headline is tightly associated with photos, decks, subheads, and the full body of the article, all of which can be interpreted in a single glance.”

Jakob Nielsen, NNg

The contextual information that accompanies a printed headline means that it can afford to be cleverer and less descriptive. However, as pointed out by Nielsen, online headlines can appear out of context. For example they could appear in search results, news feeds, social media or navigation.

“Headline text has to stand on its own and make sense when the rest of the content is not available”

Jakob Nielsen, NNg

Since your page title could be displayed in a number of different places, and on a number of different screen sizes which may reduce the amount of information displayed, it’s essential they make sense out of context.

It’s also best if headlines don’t contain jargon or wordplay. For example, take a look at this example headline:

‘Cutting-edge Research’

This is vague and could be about any topic and relate to any organisation. It’s meaningless on its own as it provides no indication of what the content will be about.

Now take a look at this title:

‘Newcastle Student Unearths Rare Roman Jewellery’

This title is much more descriptive and gives a clear idea of what the article will be about. The reader can then quickly decide whether the content will be useful or of interest to them.

You only have precious seconds to grab your reader’s attention and if you waste those seconds forcing them to fathom out what your title means, they’ll lose patience and leave without reading your content.

Begin with key words

To help with search engine optimisation (SEO) your page titles should contain keywords.

For example, it’s unlikely that a vague title like ‘Students’ Union’ will appear high in search results. It will be competing with other universities who will be using the same general phrase. If we tweak the title to ‘Newcastle University Students’ Union’ this will help with SEO because the title is more specific. People will be more likely to find your page if your title contains words used by your readers.

It’s better if keywords appear at the beginning of your titles if possible, as this will help with scan reading.

“Moving keywords to the front of titles increases the likelihood that they get noticed“

Hoa Loranger, NNg

Eye tracking research conducted by the Nielsen Norman group shows that people read differently online in an F shaped pattern, and tend to see the first two words in a sentence.

Keep page titles short

Keeping page titles concise will also help with scan reading. Our recommendation for page titles is 50 characters (including spaces). This might not sound like many words to play with, but remember that your page title could be viewed on a small screen. If it’s too long it will run over several lines; making it much harder to read and understand.

Headline Analyzer tool

In Corporate Web Development we use a free online tool called Headline Analyzer to help write headlines for blog posts.

As shown from the screenshot below you simply type your headline into the headline field and click the ‘Analyse Now’ button. You’ll then be given a score for your headline and tips on how to improve it.

Screenshot of Headline Analyzer tool

Admittedly this tool is more useful for writing headlines for blogs than webpages. However, what I find helpful is the chance to see how my page title will look in search results. This helps me decide whether it will make sense out of context:

Screenshot of a headline displayed in search results using the Headline Analyzer tool

Have a go and see what you think!

Summary

What you call your page is crucial in helping people find it. If you use keywords that your readers will be using and if a title is descriptive of your content this will help with SEO. Furthermore, the more descriptive a page title is, the more likely people will select and read your content. This is because they will be able to quickly see whether the content is relevant to them and will help answer their questions.

References

Jakob Nielsen, Microcontent: How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 6 September 1998

Hoa Loranger, Headings Are Pick-Up Lines: 5 Tips for Writing Headlines That Convert, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 9 August 2015

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Go Mobile: the Story So Far

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Our Go Mobile programme is up and running: 17, yes 17 (!) sites went live in September.

Phase 1 (our ‘beta/test/is this even possible’ phase) was a success. And because of this, we’re going to carry on and put the rest of our external-facing website through the programme.

Go mobile explained

Go Mobile is a project to make our website mobile responsive. This means it works on desktop computers as well as tablets and mobile phones.

But we’re not making things easy for ourselves. As well as adding a responsive design we’re also:

  • improving content – rewriting for mobile
  • updating assets – our new design needs higher quality images to support content
  • moving to a new content management system (TerminalFour – T4)

You can see some examples in action:

Oh no! Why have they changed everything?

Some of our feedback, particularly from University staff, has been unhappiness that we’ve changed or moved things. Remember we’re doing this for the greater good!

Our websites now work just as well on mobile as on huge desktop screens. Go Mobile is about improving access for all.

Key developments cover navigation, design and content

NAVIGATION

How you move through pages needs to be simpler and easier for mobile (smaller screens). Navigation is improved for those using desktops too. We’ve made sites shallower and removed redundant content.

DESIGN

Design enhances your website but doesn’t rule it. We’re always thinking about what our users want from the web content. For example, we’ve made sure that images are impactful and support our messages. But we’ve made sure that our template prioritises for you: on mobile, images shrink and drop under content.

Content

Text for mobile is written in short, easy to read paragraphs.  This helps when it’s stacked for smaller mobile screens.

We’ve also introduced styles like the introduction which helps to focus the point of the content on the web page. It’s allowed us to firm up our content standards. A paragraph should be around 20 words because this works better on mobile.

Even though this is part of writing for the web/writing for mobile, a lot of our changes are just about good writing generally.

So, how did we do it?

By magic of course! Well actually, a whole lot of design, technical and word wizardry.

We worked closely with colleagues in our IT Service (NUIT) as well as those in schools, faculties and central services.

We developed a brand new suite of training for our web editors. This covers editing in the new system, writing for the web, defining site objectives and using media (images and videos). We also introduced various tools to help you evaluate and improve content.

Find out what our web editors thought of the Go Mobile process.

Next steps

There are exciting times ahead. We’re turning attention to Phase 2. This is where we take the rest of the external website through Go Mobile. We’re planning to do this between January and December 2016.

It’s going to mean a lot of change for the team:

  • Agile ways of working
  • focused, time-bound project cycles to get through all the sites
  • extra staff
  • new office space

It’s going to mean a lot of commitment from our faculties and services. We need staff dedicated to developing their websites working with us and giving time for training on writing best practice and the new content management system.

We’d love to hear your comments on what we’re doing. Either comment here or use our feedback form.

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Hide or Not to Hide…When to use Expandable Content

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Expandable content, or an accordion as it is sometimes referred to, is a content type that allows you to show and hide information on a webpage.

When the content is collapsed it appears as a heading on the screen.

Expandable content (collapsed)

After the user clicks on the heading it expands to display hidden content.

Expandable content

Expandable content can be used on both desktop and mobile, or simply on mobile.

In our recent Go Mobile training, there were a few questions about when to use expandable content.

Let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of this content type to help you decide when, or if, you should use expandable content on your site.

Helps reduce scrolling and provides an overview

Expandable content makes content more compact so it helps to reduce page length and scrolling. This is particularly beneficial for mobile devices, where reading is more difficult.

Expandable content also provides an overview of content on a page.

“The mini-IA provided by the accordions helps readers understand the structure of the page and lets them focus on the relevant pieces.”

Hoa Loranger Nielsen Norman group (NNg)

This helps your users decide more quickly whether your page contains the information they’re looking for, and again reduces scrolling.

Direct access

As pointed out by Raluca Budiu (NNg), expandable content also gives people direct access to information rather than forcing them to read content that may not be relevant to them.

This is really useful if you have some content that is specific to certain audiences.

For example, we use expandable content on our Open Day website for the travel page. It works well for this content as people only need to expand the information relevant to them. If people are planning to travel to the University by train they’re not forced to read information about travelling by car and parking in the city.

Similarly, expandable content is used on our undergraduate website to display the range of qualifications accepted for undergraduate degrees. Prospective students only need to click to expand the qualifications that are applicable to them.

Extra click to access information

Giving users the choice to view content is useful, but can be problematic as they may choose not to view your content.

This means that content hidden behind an accordion may not be seen by your users.

“An extra step is required to see the information. Headings and titles must be descriptive and enticing enough to motivate people to “spend” clicks on them.“

Hoa Loranger (NNg)

Since content in an expandable box could be overlooked by your users this demonstrates that essential information should never be hidden.

It’s important that your main messages can still be understood, even if your users don’t click to view your expandable content.

Expandable content can also be frustrating to your users if they need to read all of the information on your page.

“Forcing people to click on headings one at a time to display full content can be cumbersome, especially if there are many topics on the list that individuals care about.“

Hoa Loranger (NNg)

Visual line on the screen

Another issue with expandable content is that it acts as a visual line on the screen.

We found, through user testing, that people often don’t expect content to follow expandable boxes and stop scrolling.

We therefore recommend using this content type near the end of your page if possible.

Summary

There’s no hard and fast rule about when to use expandable content. It’s use depends on the nature of your content and the audiences you’re writing for.

If content is audience-specific then expandable content is a good way to give users direct access to information that is most relevant to them – on both desktop and mobile.

Expandable boxes are also useful for secondary and supplementary content, particularly on mobile, as they save space and reduce scrolling. However, to encourage users to click expandable content it’s crucial that you’re headings are meaningful.

Use this content type sparingly – remember it’s an extra click for users to access hidden information.

If content is essential information and applicable to all of your users don’t hide it.

References

Hoa Loranger, Accordions Are Not Always the Answer for Complex Content on Desktops, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 18 May 2014

Raluca Budiu, Direct Access vs. Sequential Access: Definition, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 13 July 2014

Jakob Nielsen, Mobile Content Is Twice as Difficult, Nielsen Norman Group (NNg), 28 February 2011

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