Table Of ContentLetting Go of the Words
The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies
Series Editors:
• Stuart Card, PARC
• Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft
• Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group
Letting Go of the Words Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide
Janice (Ginny) Redish to User Research
Mike Kuniavsky
User-Centered Design Stories
Carol Righi and Janice James Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design
and Refine User Interfaces
Text Entry Systems: Mobility, Accessibility, Universality
Carolyn Snyder
I. Scott MacKenzie and Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii
Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What
Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right
We Think and Do
and the Right Design
B. J. Fogg
Bill Buxton
Coordinating User Interfaces for Consistency
Effective Prototyping for Software Makers
Edited by Jakob Nielsen
Jonathan Arnowitz, Michael Arent, Nevin Berger
Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work
The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout
Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, Scott D.Wood
Product Design
Jonathan Pruitt and Tamara Adlin Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development
of Human-Computer Interaction
Cost-Justifying Usability
Mary Beth Rosson and John M. Carroll
Edited by Randolph Bias and Deborah Mayhew
Your Wish is My Command: Programming by Example
User Interface Design and Evaluation
Edited by Henry Lieberman
Debbie Stone, Caroline Jarrett, Mark Woodroffe, Shailey Minocha
GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Dos for Software Developers
Rapid Contextual Design
and Web Designers
Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell, Shelley Wood
Jeff Johnson
Voice Interaction Design: Crafting the New Conversational
Information Visualization: Perception for Design
Speech Systems
Colin Ware
Randy Allen Harris
Robots for Kids: Exploring New Technologies for Learning
Understanding Users: A Practical Guide to User Requirements
Edited by Allison Druin and James Hendler
Methods, Tools, and Techniques
Catherine Courage and Kathy Baxter Information Appliances and Beyond: Interaction Design
for Consumer Products
The Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices
Edited by Eric Bergman
for Web-Based Software
Susan Fowler and Victor Stanwick Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think
Written and edited by Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay,
The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society
Ben Shneiderman
Richard Ling
The Design of Children’s Technology
Information Visualization: Perception for Design, 2nd Edition
Edited by Allison Druin
Colin Ware
Web Site Usability: A Designer’s Guide
Interaction Design for Complex Problem Solving: Developing
Jared M. Spool, Tara Scanlon, Will Schroeder, Carolyn
Useful and Usable Software
Snyder, Terri DeAngelo
Barbara Mirel
The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner’s
The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and
Handbook for User Interface Design
Reflections
Deborah J. Mayhew
Written and edited by Ben Bederson and Ben Shneiderman
Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems
HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Towards a
Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt
Multidisciplinary Science
Edited by John M. Carroll Human-Computer Interface Design: Success Stories,
Emerging Methods, and Real World Context
Web Bloopers: 60 Common Web Design Mistakes,
Edited by Marianne Rudisill, Clayton Lewis, Peter P. Polson,
and How to Avoid Them
Timothy D. McKay
Jeff Johnson
Letting Go of the Words
Writing Web Content that Works
Janice (Ginny) Redish
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON
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Copyright © 2007 by Janice Redish. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redish, Janice. Letting go of the words : writing Web content that works /
Janice (Ginny) Redish.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The Morgan Kaufmann series in interactive technologies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-12-369486-7
ISBN-10: 0-12-369486-8
1. Web site development. 2. Web sites—Design. I. Title.
TK5105.888.R427 2007
006.7—dc22
2007012868
For information on all Morgan Kaufmann publications, visit our
Web site at www.mkp.comorwww.books.elsevier.com
Printed in China
07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Edward F. Redish,
who has always been called “Joe,”
with love and deep appreciation
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Foreword xv
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Content! Content! Content! 1
People come to web sites for the content 1
Web users skim and scan 2
Web users read, but . . . 2
They don’t read more because . . . 3
What makes writing for the web work well? 4
Good web writing is like a conversation 4
Good web writing answers people’s questions 5
Good web writing lets people “grab and go” 5
IntroducingLetting Go of the Words 6
It’s about writing and design, not technology 6
It’s full of examples 7
It’s based in a user-centered design process 7
You can start the process in several places 7
You can jump around in the book 8
You can join our web community 8
2 People! People! People! 11
We all interpret as we read 11
Successful writers focus on their audiences 12
Seven steps to understanding your audiences 12
1. List your major audiences 12
2. Gather information about your audiences 13
3. List major characteristics for each audience 14
Key phrases or quotes 15
Experience, expertise 15
Emotions 16
Values 17
Technology 17
Social and cultural environments 18
Demographics 18
4. Gather your audiences’ questions, tasks, and stories 19
5. Use your information to create personas 19
What information goes into a persona? 20
How do personas work with a web team? 22
6. Include the persona’s goals and tasks 24
vii
viii Contents
7. Use your information to write scenarios for your site 24
Scenarios tell you the conversations people want to start 25
Scenarios help you understand all types of users 26
Everything on your web site should fulfill a scenario 27
Scenarios can help you write good web content 27
3 Starting Well: Home Pages 29
Home pages – the 10-minute mini-tour 30
Identifying the site, establishing the brand 31
Setting the tone and personality of the site 31
Helping people get a sense of what the site is all about 35
A useful home page makes it instantly clear what the site is about 36
A useful home page is mostly links and short descriptions 37
Letting people start key tasks immediately 41
Put forms people want right away on the home page 41
Make sure the forms are high on the page 41
Put Search near the top – where site visitors expect it 43
Don’t make people fill out forms they don’t want 44
Sending each person on the right way, effectively and efficiently 44
Use your site visitors’ words 45
Don’t make people wonder which link to click on 45
Putting it all together: A case study 46
Building your site upfrom the content – not only down
from the home page 50
4 Getting There: Pathway Pages 53
Most site visitors are on a hunt – a mission – and the pathway
is just to get them there 54
People don’t want to read a lot while hunting 54
A pathway page is like a table of contents 58
Sometimes, short descriptions help 59
Marketing is likely to be ignored on a pathway page 61
The smoothness of the path is more important than the number
of clicks (within reason) 63
Don’t make people think 65
Keep people from needing the Back button 65
Many people choose the first option that looks plausible 66
Many site visitors are landing inside your site 66
5 Writing Information, Not Documents 69
Breaking up large documents 69
Think “topic,” not “book” 70
Break web content into topics and subtopics 73
Deciding how much to put on one web page 80
How much do people want in one visit? How connected
is the information? 81
Contents ix
Am I overloading my site visitors? How long is the web page? 83
What’s the download time? 84
Will people want to print? How much will they want to print? 84
PDF – yes or no? 85
Should you rely on PDF files for your web content? 85
When might a PDF file be appropriate? 86
When is a PDF file not appropriate? 86
When accessibility is an issue 89
Three more reasons for not using PDFs 89
In some cases, offer both versions 90
6 Focusing on Your Essential Messages 93
Six guidelines for focusing on your essential messages 94
1. Give people only what theyneed 94
2. Cut! Cut! Cut! And cut again! 98
3. Start with the key point. Write in inverted pyramid style 102
4. Break down walls of words 107
5. Market by giving useful information 110
All sites sell – products or themselves 111
The web is primarily a “pull” technology; marketing specializes
in “push” 112
Take advantage of “marketing moments” – market after the visitor
is at least partially satisfied 112
6. Layer information to help web users 114
Layering from a brief description to the full article 114
Layering from an information page to more on other web pages 114
Layering from part of the page to a short explanation 116
Layering in innovative ways 118
7 Designing Your Web Pages for Easy Use 127
Fourteen guidelines for helpful design 128
1. Make the page elements obvious, using patterns and alignment 129
2. Consider the entire site when planning the design 131
An e-commerce example 132
An information site example 134
Plan a consistent design across the web site 134
Understand the process that moves from plan to launch 135
Integrate content and design from the beginning 136
3. Work with templates 137
4. Use space effectively. Keep active space in your content 137
Understand passive space and active space 138
For your web content, focus on active space 139
5. Beware of false bottoms 140
6. Don’t let headings float 141
7. Don’t center text 143
