Letting Go of the Words
Writing Web Content that Works
- 2nd Edition - August 14, 2012
- Author: Janice (Ginny) Redish
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 3 8 5 9 3 0 - 3
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 3 8 5 9 3 1 - 0
Web site design and development continues to become more sophisticated. An important part of this maturity originates with well-laid-out and well-written content. Ginny Redish is… Read more
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Request a sales quoteWeb site design and development continues to become more sophisticated. An important part of this maturity originates with well-laid-out and well-written content. Ginny Redish is a world-renowned expert on information design and how to produce clear writing in plain language for the web. All of the invaluable information that she shared in the first edition is included with numerous new examples. New information on content strategy for web sites, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media make this once again the only book you need to own to optimize your writing for the web.
- New material on content strategy, search engine optimization, and social media
- Lots of new and updated examples
- More emphasis on new hardware like tablets, iPads, and iPhones
Praise for Letting Go of the Words
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introducing Letting Go of the Words
1. Content! Content! Content!
People come for the content
Content = conversation
Web = phone, not file cabinet
Online, people skim and scan
People do read online – sometimes
People don’t read more because …
Writing well = having successful conversations
Three case studies
Summarizing Chapter 1
2. Planning
Why? Know what you want to achieve
Who? What’s the conversation?
Breathing life into your data with personas
Breathing life into your data with scenarios
Summarizing Chapter 2
Interlude 1. Content Strategy
Why is content strategy so important?
What is content strategy?
What does content strategy cover?
Who does content strategy?
Seven steps to carry out a content strategy
3. Designing for Easy Use
Who should read this chapter – and why?
Integrate content and design from the beginning
Build in flexibility for universal usability
Color
Space
Typography
Putting it all together: A case study
Summarizing Chapter 3
4. Starting Well
Home pages – content-rich with few words
1 Be findable through search engines
2 Identify the site
3 Set the site’s tone and personality
4 Help people get a sense of what the site is all about
5 Continue the conversation quickly
6 Send each person on the right way
Summarizing Chapter 4
5. Getting There
1 Site visitors hunt first
2 People don’t want to read while hunting
3 A pathway page is like a table of contents
4 Sometimes, short descriptions help
5 Three clicks is a myth
6 Many people choose the first option
Summarizing Chapter 5
6. Breaking up and Organizing Content
1 Think “information,” not “document”
2 Divide your content thoughtfully
3 Consider how much to put on one web page
4 Use PDFs sparingly and only for good reasons
Summarizing Chapter 6
7. Focusing on Conversations and Key Messages
Seven guidelines for focusing on conversations and key messages
1 Give people only what they need
2 Cut! Cut! Cut! And cut Again!
3 Think “bite, snack, meal”
4 Start with your key message
5 Layer information
6 Break down walls of words
7 Plan to share and engage through social media
Summarizing Chapter 7
Interlude 2. Finding Marketing Moments
Marketing on the web is different: Pull not push
Join the site visitor’s conversation
Find the right marketing moments
Don’t miss good marketing moments
Never stop the conversation
8. Announcing Your Topic with a Clear Headline
Seven guidelines for headlines that work well
1 Use your site visitors’ words
2 Be clear instead of cute
3 Think about your global audience
4 Try for a medium length (about eight words)
5 Use a statement, question, or call to action
6 Combine labels (nouns) with more information
7 Add a short description if people need it
Summarizing Chapter 8
9. Including Useful Headings
Good headings help readers in many ways
Thinking about headings also helps authors
Eleven guidelines for writing useful headings
1 Don’t slap headings into old content
2 Start by outlining
3 Choose a good heading style: Questions, statements, verb phrases
4 Use nouns and noun phrases sparingly
5 Put your site visitors’ wordsin the headings
6 Exploit the power of parallelism
7 Use only a few levels of headings
8 Distinguish headings from text
9 Make each level of heading clear
10 Help people jump to content within a web page
11 Evaluate! Read the headings
Summarizing Chapter 9
Interlude 3. The New Life of Press Releases
The old life of press releases
The new life of press releases
How do people use press releases on the web?
What should we do?
Does it make a difference?
10. Tuning up Your Sentences
Ten Guidelines for Tuning up Your Sentences
1 Talk to your site visitors – Use “you”
2 Use “I” and “we”
3 Write in the active voice (most of the time)
4 Write short, simple sentences
5 Cut unnecessary words
6 Give extra information its own place
7 Keep paragraphs short
8 Start with the context
9 Put the action in the verb
10 Use your site visitors’ words
Summarizing Chapter 10
11. Using Lists and Tables
Six guidelines for useful lists
1 Use bulleted lists for items or options
2 Match bullets to your site’s personality
3 Use numbered lists for instructions
4 Keep most lists short
5 Try to start list items the same way
6 Format lists well
Lists and tables: What’s the difference?
Six guidelines for useful tables
1 Use tables for a set of “if, then” sentences
2 Use tables to compare numbers
3 Think tables = answers to questions
4 Think carefully about the first column
5 Keep tables simple
6 Format tables well
Summarizing Chapter 11
Interlude 4. Legal Information Can Be Clear
Accurate, sufficient, clear – You can have all three
Avoid archaic legal language
Avoid technical jargon
Use site visitors’ words in headings
Follow the rest of this book, too
12. Writing Meaningful Links
Seven guidelines for writing meaningful links
1 Don’t make new program or product names links by themselves
2 Think ahead: Launch and land on the same name
3 For actions, start with a verb
4 Make the link meaningful – Not Click here or just More
5 Don’t embed links (for most content)
6 Make bullets with links active, too
7 Make unvisited and visited links obvious
Summarizing Chapter 12
13. Using Illustrations Effectively
Five purposes that illustrations can serve
Seven guidelines for using illustrations effectively
1 Don’t make people wonder what or why
2 Choose an appropriate size
3 Show diversity
4 Don’t make content look like ads
5 Don’t annoy people with blinking, rolling, waving, or wandering text or pictures
6 Use animation only where it helps
7 Make illustrations accessible
Summarizing Chapter 13
14. Getting from Draft to Final
Read, edit, revise, proofread your own work
Share drafts with colleagues
Walk your personas through their conversations
Let editors help you
Negotiate successful reviews (and edits)
Summarizing Chapter 14
Interlude 5. Creating an Organic Style Guide
Use a style guide for consistency
Use a style guide to remind people
Don’t reinvent
Appoint an owner
Get management support
Make it easy to create, to find, and to use
15. Test! Test! Test!
Why do usability testing?
What’s needed for usability testing
What’s not needed for usability testing
How do we do a usability test?
What variations might we consider?
Why not just do focus groups?
A final point: Test the content!!
For More Information – A Bibliography
Subject Index
Index of Web Sites Shown as Examples
About Ginny Redish
- No. of pages: 368
- Language: English
- Edition: 2
- Published: August 14, 2012
- Imprint: Morgan Kaufmann
- Paperback ISBN: 9780123859303
- eBook ISBN: 9780123859310
JR
Janice (Ginny) Redish
A linguist by training, Ginny is passionate about understanding how people think, how people read, how people use web sites - and helping clients write web content that meets web users' needs in the ways in which they work.
Ginny loves to teach and mentor - and to practice what she preaches. She turns research into practical guidelines that her clients and students can apply immediately to their web sites.
Ginny's earlier books received rave reviews for being easy to read and easy to use, as well as comprehensive and full of great advice. She is co-author of two classic books on usability:
* A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (with Joseph Dumas)
* User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (with JoAnn Hackos)
She is also the author of the section on writing on www.usability.gov.
Ginny's work and leadership in the usability and plain language communities have earned her numerous awards, including the Rigo Award from the ACM Special Interest Group on the Design of Communication and the Alfred N. Goldsmith Award from the IEEE Professional Communication Society.
Ginny is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication and a past member of the Board of Directors of both the Society for Technical Communication and the Usability Professionals' Association.