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I recently had the pleasure of connecting with colleagues in Croatia Vibor Cipan and Darko Čengija about Wall of Tweets.

My first experience with Wall of Tweets was while watching talks at the TEDxMälaren event in June; and I really enjoyed the interaction!

Context is easily lost, and often misunderstood on Twitter. Live tweeting is another popular process, but unless one is sitting in on the presentation it is very difficult to convert the value of the ideas into meaningful actions in only 140 characters.

At the TEDxMälaren event I was able to watch the presentation (from Ottawa, Canada) and connect with others around the world simultaneously.

As TechCrunch recently published:

While current solutions like Twitterfall are free, they don’t look as nice and end up showing some of the tweets late, due to a limit on the API calls from the centralized Twitterfall server. Wall of Tweets is a paid service, so they do guarantee it will work, as well as letting you host it on your own server if you really want to.

As a special promotion, Wall of Tweets is offering all UX, IA and design-related conferences worldwide with free licenses – both online HTML versions and rich, venue-based versions. All you need to do is to send Vibor an email and ask for a free license. You can reach him at vcATfatduxDOTcom

Recent examples of Wall of Tweets:

My two cents…

1. “There is no definition, so we can make up our own.”
No. The definitions are there, although the details may differ. User experience (UX) deals with how people interact with stuff – it represents the sum of their reactions and subjective perceptions. So, don’t go off on your own until you’ve bothered to do a simple search on Google. If nothing else, it will keep you from making a complete fool of yourself by confusing UX with usability.

2. “If the experts disagree, then the discipline isn’t really mature.”
No. Experts disagree in all fields. Doctors argue about the best treatments. So do designers. If you’re looking for a “mature” field, stick to horseback riding, which hasn’t changed much the past couple of hundred years. Instead, consider that most fields are “evolving”. User experience is one of these.

3. “User experience is only about computers and stuff.”
No. User experience is all around us. Eat a freshly picked strawberry. That’s a user experience, too. The problem seems to stem from the word “user”, which turns up in “user-friendly” and other computer-worldly clichés. But until we find a better word, it will have to do.

4. “If it’s on a screen, it must have something to do with IT.”
No. Just because a book is printed on paper, it doesn’t mean Tolstoy was working for the lumber industry. Granted, computers may be involved. But in the online world, UX focuses on what goes on the screen and less on how it got there.

5. “User experience is a subset of [some other discipline]”
No. User experience is the umbrella under which many other highly structured activities take place – from information architecture to service management to graphic design to usability evaluation. If you put UX on equal (or lessor) footing with other disciplines, it’s easy to ignore it in favour of something more tangible – yet the forest continues to exist even if you only focus on the trees. And like a real umbrella, you’ll first notice you’ve lost UX when it starts to rain.

Got a myth to add to the list? Post a comment – the floor is yours.

For about a year now, FatDUX has been sharing the following article with business leaders and potential clients around the world. The feedback has been tremendously positive. We’d now like to share it with you. Happy holidays.

Feel free to use this in your own work. Here’s an easy-to-distribute PDF (25 kb):

Download: 10 do’s and dont’s of web development

The 10 dos and don’ts of website development (that every CEO should know)With the current economic downturn and significant layoffs among sales staff, the web has become more important than ever as a means of communicating with customers/clients/membership. But I have yet to meet a CEO who likes website development. It makes business leaders uncomfortable. The web experts speak in a cryptic language – CMS, KM, XML, CSS. The site seems to take forever to build, costs more than expected, and invariably provides less value than the organization had hoped.

No one likes signing a big check without some idea as to what they’re getting. So if you’re a business leader, here are a few basic, non-technical tips that will significantly increase your chances for online success. And they let you do what you do best – lead.

1. Don’t confuse marketing with communication

Most marketing efforts are concerned with gaining the attention and interest of a particular target audience – often quite aggressively. But on the web, your audience has come to you voluntarily. So, lighten up on the promotional hype. Yes, your site can become an important sales tool, but it should do so in straightforward, conversational language. Don’t let an eager salesrep talk you into blinking banners on every page. Instead, regard your website as part of your service mix first and your marketing mix second. It’s about creating a valuable experience for your site’s visitors, about starting a dialog with your customers (and potential customers). Therefore, make sure your web team represents a good cross section of disciplines in your organization.

Do: View your website as part of your customer-service package.

2. Don’t view your website as a software development projectCreating and maintaining most informational websites is no more a “software project” than publishing your annual report. You write reports using a standard word processing program; you publish to the web using a standard content-management system. There are dozens of superb systems available, and hundreds of excellent add-ons (survey systems, social networks, video channels, wikis, etc.) so don’t let anyone talk you into building one from scratch. That’s also why this activity shouldn’t be handed over to your IT department. Granted, a site with very sophisticated functionality will probably require special programming, but don’t count on your in-house skills as being enough.

Do:  Whenever possible, purchase professional web-publishing software from a single-focus vendor (Important note: Microsoft, IBM, and SAP probably shouldn’t be on your shortlist, despite anything your IT department tells you).

3. Don’t couple unrelated initiatives

Just because one project concerning computers and customers is in the works, you won’t necessarily create synergy by tacking on other initiatives that also involve computers and customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a frequent sinner. But unless you have a huge budget and sophisticated needs, both your website and your CRM activities will be far more successful (and much cheaper) if you tackle them one at a time. Keep your intranet development out of this, too (although you can probably use the same publishing software used for your website). In other words, don’t let HR take over the project either. And don’t turn your website into a software development project.

Do: Deal with your website – and just your website. Then take care of the other stuff.

4. Don’t be afraid to set measurable goals for your website

Your website can be an active part of your business plan. In fact it should be. Don’t just view it as your extended business card or think that a graphic redesign is going to help you attract new customers/clients/members. Your website should be assigned targets just like every other department in your organization. And don’t just go for easily measurable numbers. Merely increasing the number of visitors is a poor goal. Shortening the sales process is better. Increasing your conversion rates is great. Streamlining logistics is a good goal. Reducing manual intervention in a sales or service process is a good goal, too. And there are dozens of others that have a direct effect on the bottom line – even for companies that don’t run an e-commerce site. So get your web team to tell you which needs they have identified, the goals they have set, and how they intend to achieve them. Since most in-house teams have limited experience in web development, this is one of the key reasons for hiring an outside strategic consultant.

Do: Insist that your website become an integrated part of your company’s business activities.

5. Don’t confuse your needs with those of your visitors

You may want your website to communicate your company’s values, service offerings, products, or something else entirely. But visitors to your site will have their own agendas. Your web team needs to identify these needs and address them with relevant content and functionality. The simple truth is, unless a site fulfills the needs of its visitors, it will never fulfill the needs of the site owner. Give your web team the time and budget to do their homework and actually talk to potential users. Very few companies truly understand how their customers use the internet.

Do: Encourage research. Accept surprises that go against your basic assumptions.

6. Don’t view your website as a fixed-term project

Your website is a process, not a project. Unlike a printed brochure that might have a useful lifetime of a year or so, your site’s content should be reviewed regularly (even daily) so that it remains accurate, interesting, and dynamic. For the most part, maintenance only takes a few minutes a day. But someone has to keep the process going, studying the statistics that tell you who has visited and what they did, and adjusting the content so that it becomes even more compelling. And that means you need to allocate resources to this critical task. Your website needs to be included in your annual budget each and every year.

Do: Once you start the process, make sure to keep it going.

7. Don’t confuse print design with web design

You probably have an ad agency. For them, “concept” means look and feel. But on the web, the “concept” is what your site can do. Your brand consists of how your website “acts” just as your brand is affected by how your employees act. Don’t let an old-school art director force you to sacrifice usability for the sake of a design guide developed for printed communications.

Do: Acknowledge and embrace web best-practices that run counter to your design guide.

8. Don’t let personal opinion cloud your focus

When it comes to websites, everyone has an opinion. But don’t just assign tasks to the people who are most enthusiastic or most vocal. Instead, find people with proven expertise and then do everything you can to help them do their jobs efficiently. And as the project progresses, try not to let your personal taste get in the way either. The only opinions that really matter are those of your website’s visitors – not your friends, family, or the well-meaning wife of the chairman. Ask yourself: “Do I want to get my way or do I want to get rich?”

Do: Seek out proven experts and support their work.

9. Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions

There are no stupid questions. And no one should make you feel like you’ve asked one. But be prepared to remember the answer – asking someone to walk you through the same subject six times is bound to create friction.

Do: If in doubt, ask. Always.

10. Don’t hide in your office

Your active support for a web project can make the difference between success and failure. Make sure everyone on the team is pulling their weight – particularly those who are responsible for writing and updating online content. Make sure the team leader has access to you when policy questions arise. That said, don’t become a micromanager – hire the best and let them get on with it.

Do: Demonstrate your active support for the project. Keep the whole team inspired.

My thanks to the dozens of CEOs who have critiqued this piece. You’ve all contributed valuable information. Thanks for sharing with me so I can share with others.

Back in January, 2009, I published my definition of user experience. UX, as user experience is popularly called, is a difficult subject to discuss with business clients. To them, “UX” is just more expensive hot air from the folks who brought us the dot bomb.

The basic problem is that discussing an experience – any experience – is highly subjective. And although others have attempted to set up metrics (notably Robert Rubinoff’s User Experience Audit, and Livia Labate’s User Experience Health Check), we don’t always end up with particularly useful data. Here at FatDUX, we were looking for a simple tool that could help us turn observations and subjective conclusions into useful dialog with our clients.

Our UX quantification model will undoubtedly be criticized by the scientific hardliners. But it does help us uncover many problems and communicate these to the client. And it works better than beating them over the head with statistics.

Please note, we take a very broad view of “user experience,” incorporating both online and offline interactions of three types:
 
- active
- passive
- secondary

Please refer to the original user-experience blogpost for details regarding these types of encounter.

Avoiding complicated algorithms
There are lots of complicated ways to work numbers, particularly when dealing with the subjective data that invariably lies at the heart of any discussion of user experience. But rather than putting together confusing formulae to present our research, we work directly with our clients to quantify empirical observations in a very simple model.

The model in brief
We start by consolidating our research findings in a single first-person narrative – an X-log (experience log). This is somewhat related to phenomenology. Once we’ve assembled this story, we work together with the client to:

1. mark each individual interaction – we call these “snapshots”
2. assign a value from 1 to 3 to each snapshot in relation to its contribution to the overall experience
3. grade the experience on a scale from -3 to +3
4. multiply the value by the grade to get a score (this is the really useful number)
5. note any events that are recurring, unique, or may be influenced by chronology (cause and effect relationships).

Plugging in the numbers
We mark each interaction, but some may later be thrown out if they are sufficiently trivial or so unique in character that they are deemed irrelevant in the broader, generic sense of the project. Although no individual snapshot can be assigned a value of 0, if you really think it deserves a value of 0, this is probably an interaction you’ll want to ignore.

When we grade the individual snapshots, we use the following scale:

+3 = fantastic
+2 = good
+1 = better than expected
0 = no effect on the ultimate user experience
-1 = poor
-2 = awful
-3 = mission critical

Unique or chronological events won’t always influence the score, but in the case of repeating events, the interaction clearly needs to be looked at carefully.

A sample narrative
Here’s a simple story based on a trip to the movies. It represents an amalgam of several user interviews, onsite research, review of user-satisfaction surveys, etc.

My family (my wife, myself, and our two kids) decided to go to the movies. We checked the internet and found the website for our local cinema complex after a quick search on Google. But we had to click three times to get to the program page and wait through a silly animated ad for a movie that hadn’t even been released yet. Worse still, we were forced to download a pdf to find out the specific movie names and playing times. And after all that, we couldn’t even order tickets online, much less purchase them, so we couldn’t avoid waiting in line when we arrived. You’d think a big four-screen complex would have a more sophisticated website. But we did find out what was showing, decided to see the latest Harry Potter movie, and piled into the car.

Finding a parking place was easy. The theater has a big lot, which is important since driving to this particular theater is really our only option. Just as we were leaving the car, it really started to rain, but happily, the entrance wasn’t far away.

There were three ticket windows open, so the lines were short. The girl behind the counter was noisily chewing gum and barely looked up during the entire transaction. In fact, she didn’t say a single word to me except to ask for the money. Wow, prices have really increased this past year. I was surprised at how expensive it was.

The lobby was inviting and quite clean. We bought popcorn and soda at the concession and found our way to our particular auditorium. It was easy to spot the signs pointing the way. As we approached, we noticed overflowing trashcans with popcorn and other garbage from previous audiences.

The seats were well-marked and easy to find. The seating was comfortable but there was old popcorn underfoot. The temperature in the room was pleasant, although all of the wet people made it get a little steamy. The sound was great and really enhanced the special effects, so we really enjoyed the movie. When we left, there was a nice usher, who opened the exits and wished us a pleasant evening as we went out. And it had stopped raining. A nice end to a nice family outing.

Defining the interactions
Reading through the narrative, we mark the individual interactive events – the snapshots. This gives us the following list:

1. Find website on internet
2. Click three times to find relevant page on site
3. Reaction to irrelevant animation
4. Find schedule (download PDF)
5. Reaction to lack of purchasing options
5a. Opinion of website
6. Park car
7. Reaction to parking lot
8. Reaction to rain
9. Reaction to proximity of parking to entrance
10. Reaction to short line
11. Reaction to rude ticketseller
12. Buy tickets
13. Reaction to ticket prices
14. Reaction to lobby
15. Buy popcorn and soda
16. Find auditorium
17. React to overfilled trashcans
18. Find seats
19. Reaction to seats
20. Reaction to popcorn on floor
21. Reaction to temperature
22. Reaction to steaminess
23. Reaction to sound
24. Reaction to movie
25. Reaction to nice usher
26. Reaction to dry weather
26a. Opinion of evening

Note that opinions are not really interactions, hence we have 5a and 26a.

Assigning values and grades
Ask your clients to help you fill out the values and grades. This is a great way to get clients emotionally involved in the design project without having to show them pretty layouts.

Conclusions
Having made this chart, there are several things that become painfully apparent. First, the lack of purchasing options is really a major problem. The need to watch irrelevant animations and resort to PDFs for information was also pretty bad. Snapshots 11, 15, and 25 suggest that additional emphasis should be placed on customer-service training for front-line personnel. Snapshots 17 and 20 illustrate that cleaning is a problem. Snapshot 22 revealed that the climate-control system was out of whack, which proved to be an easy repair.

The most important point of the exercise, though, was that the client suddenly understood how all of these events ultimately contributed to the total perception of the movie-going experience. The X-log narrative started a productive dialog about user experience and not about the color of the links.

We hope you’ll find it useful.

We know technology moves fast these days. But how fast? And which technology?

Most folks know a “dog year” equates to about seven human years. Although this is not a particularly accurate actuarial device (little dogs live longer than big dogs), it does give us a rough idea as to when Bowser is going to be chasing that chariot in the sky.

We have other measurements, too. For example, Moore’s Law suggested back in 1965 that the number of transistors in a chip would double about every two years. Again, a generalized barometer that has proven to be more accurate and useful than one would have thought.

So where are we at with the internet? With the web? How can we measure the maturity of our apps? Or predict business cycles in the online world?

I think I’ve found a useful answer. Here’s how I worked it out.

Establishing a baseline
My first task was to find a suitable industrial-era baseline. I needed to find a well-established, highly industrial segment that had demonstrated:

-  a period of invention, followed by
-  a period of adoption, followed by
-  a definitive end to an era of pioneering, followed by
-  a long period of slow, incremental innovation
-  a long-term, on-going global presence

Finding such a segment is easier said than done. The obvious-in-hindsight choice was the automobile industry – a sudden inspirational flash in the middle of a presentation on innovation I was giving in Italy.

Autos and the web have a lot in common
The first commercial vehicle was a Daimler, produced in the United Kingdom in 1896. Interestingly, the first commercial websites started to appear about 100 years later. In my calculations, I will use 1993, which marked the introduction of the first true graphic browser, Mosaic. Most experts agree that the introduction of Mosaic represented a turning point in the history of the Web – much as the original Daimler represented a turning point for those experimenting with horseless carriages.

Certainly, no one would contest that websites in 2009 cannot represent the final phase of online evolution. If we compare ourselves to automobiles anno 1909, it would seem we haven’t come very far at all. If nothing else it strongly suggests that a “calendar year” is significantly longer than an “internet year”.

End of the pioneering period
The era of pioneers, where most of us working in the online arena were pretty much making things up as we went along have long since passed. Today, we have pretty good sets of best practices. But when did the age of pioneering actually end? We need a date for our calculations. Although the current economic crisis has caused unimployment in our industry, it’s doing that in all industries. We are not seeing the great “weeding out” of questionable practices that we saw back in the early years of this decade. From a development point of view, we need to go back to the burst of the dot-com bubble of 2001.

Even given the rise of social media and other innovations during the past decade, the market reaction to events of 1998-2001 equate, from a business point of view, to many other technology inspired booms, including autos in the 1920s (other similar technology booms include railroads in the 1840s, radios in the 1920s, and transistor electronics in the 1950s).

So which year represents the end of pioneering for the automobile industry? The introduction of mass production by Ford in 1908? The U.S. entry into World War I in 1917? I pondered this for over a year before I accidentally came across a footnote in a book on antique cars that stated “The stock market crash of 1929 marked the end of the pioneering period for car manufacturers.” Conveniently, a crisis again seems to have marked the end of an era.

The similarities observed in the aftermath of both 1929 and 2001 have erie commonalities. For example, a study of the car industry suggests that there were more makes and generally better cars in the 1920s than in the 1930s. After the market crash of 1929, bad ideas (and poorly built cars) became more prevalent. And I would argue that in many semi-developed online markets (Scandinavia for instance), websites did deteriorate in quality during most of the decade following the dot-bomb; while pretty, these applications did not successfully build the shared frames of reference needed to establish credibility, trust, and a willingness on the part of site visitors to deal with these business entities. Indeed, there is still far too much “brochure-ware” polluting the ether.

But back to 1929. If the Wall Street Crash marked the end of the pioneering era in automobiles, it should be possible to work some numbers.

Doing the math
If 1896 and 1929 mark the age of pioneering for the auto industry, we have a period of about 33 years. And if we accept that 1993 and 2001 represent watershed years for the Web, that works out to seven years (late 1993 to early 2001). The months of introduction are critical when calculating the length of the pioneering period for the Web as the difference between seven and eight years has far too significant an effect on the calculations.

Setting up a simple ratio, we find:

33 =   X
7        1

And that means X = 4.7 years.

Proof of concept
So is 4.7 years a viable figure? Just like Moore’s Law, Reiss’ Law will be proven or disproven by history – it is impossible to provide hard proof. But the anecdotal evidence is already compelling. For example, economists put the average business cycle (as defined by Burns and Mitchell) somewhere between 3.5 – 7 years. This appears pretty much the same for cycles triggered/ended by exo- and endogenous causes. The average time needed for a traditional business to establish a business model, gain goodwill, and prove its worth is about eight years – longer than a single business cycle, but usually shorter than two.

So if my number works, one calendar year should roughly represent slightly less than one complete business cycle in the online environment.

Curiously, if you look at the online ventures that have succeeded this past decade, you’ll find that an incredible number of them have been sold or expanded their ownership base within the first two years of operation – which fits surprisingly well with the timing of the offline experience, using my 4.7-to-1 adjustment; if we look beyond the get-rich-quick IPO mania of the late 1990s, many successful offline ventures typically seek alternative financing early into a second business cycle.

If you look at the online ventures that have failed this past decade, you’ll find that the same cyclic pattern repeats – ventures have roughly two calendar years to make it or break it. We, of course, knew this from our emprical observations over the years. But using the numbers I’ve laid out here, it’s easier to see why this is so from a business-economic standpoint.

Of course, I haven’t yet identified the triggers that mark the beginning or end of an online business cycle. But I’m working on that, too.

So where are we now?
If we compare, for example, websites to cars, we’re 15 x 4.7 years into our development. With a calendar starting point in 1896, that puts current web development on par with the car model year 1960.

If we continue to use cars as our barometer, we can see that a number of things have been invented and standardized – the number of wheels, shift patterns, basic controls (pedals, steering wheel), the placement of heating and ventilation controls, etc.

In web terms, perhaps this suggests that many of the basic navigational devices we use today will be around for some time. But it also leaves us wide open for innovation. For example, web servers account for an incredibly high proportion of CO2 emissions – almost as much as the aviation industry according to the UK’s Health Protection Agency task force.

Should we be using gray backgrounds rather than white to reduce electrical consumption? Maybe AJAX isn’t a good idea seen from a sustainability point of view.

If we look at the development of the automobile these past 50 years, two issues really stand out: safety and fuel economy.

So my question to you is, what are OUR safety and fuel economy issues? And how long do we have to make these improvements? Can we use my magic number to predict the future of our industry by examining the past of other industries?

(Last updated 13 April 2010)

The truth is, most online readers don’t care much about how web writers tackle grammar, spelling, and punctuation as long as they get the information they need. That said, good grammar does build trust in your organization. Proper spelling does, too - so proofread your text and ask a professional copywriter to look it over if at all possible.

Here are some of the many tips I give our online clients during my popular “Writing for the web” workshop.

 1. Kill your darlings
This is a quote from the American writer William Faulkner. Basically, it means you should take a critical look at what you’ve written. I often discover that if I cut out my first paragraph, I will improve the text 100%. On the web, visitors want you to get to the point. They’re not on your site to admire your fine writing.

2. Apply George Orwell’s rules
George Orwell, the English author of 1984, Animal Farm and other classics, has six rules of writing. Here they are – they’re all gems:

1) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print.

2) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4) Never use the passive voice when you can use the active

5) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday equivalent.

6) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous!

3: Build shared references
This is about getting your readers to understand what you already know. For example, if I mention “the soup Nazi”, you may or may not recognize this reference from the TV comedy, Seinfeld. As writers, we cannot take any chances - our job is to make sure that people understand exactly what we mean and what we say on each web page.

Just for fun, read this description and create a vision in your mind:

“Ordinary 60 W lightbulb with standard screw-in base (E27)”

Pause a moment before you read on. Make sure you see the lightbulb in your mind’s eye.

OK, continue reading.

Most people envision a typical frosted lightbulb. Yet, we lack a true share reference – after all, what does “ordinary” mean? For example, is this lightbulb 110V or 220V? Clear? Colored? Frosted? Does the lightbulb work or is it burned out? Do you know what an E27 base is? (probably not: it stands for Edison 27 millimeter, which is something of a defacto standard the world over).

This simple description of the lightbulb left a lot of questions unanswered. As web writers, our task is to leave nothing to chance. And it’s no surprise that marketingexperiments.com discovered long text outsells short text by 41%!

This point could be a whole lecture unto itself. But if you understand the generic principle, you’ll create much better web copy. Here are five tips for creating stronger shared references:

1) Don’t take anything for granted

2) Anticipate the questions people may have

3) Answer questions they didn’t think to ask

4) Examine your content in the context of what your site visitors probably want to do

5) The communication environment will affect the information needed at any given time

4. Write front-loaded paragraphs
Start with your conclusion. Here’s an example:
“A special tax on automobiles will be used to finance road safety improvements.”

You can then continue with the rest of the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions that you’ll want to answer in your introduction:

“The Prime Minister announced this yesterday at a press conference in London in response to the drastic rise in road fatalities.”

Your site visitors want information fast. Don’t make them wade through a lot of text to get what they need. And from an accessibility viewpoint, putting the conclusion up front means that automatic screen-reading devices (such as JAWS), can “tell” sight-impaired folks what they need to know immediately – including that this might not be the page they want to be on.

5. Accept that people read differently on the web
Reading from a screen isn’t particularly relaxing. The mention of “website” doesn’t conjure up images of a comfy sofa, a crackling fireplace, and a warm cup of tea. Fact: people read differently on the web (and about 25% slower, too). This is what they do:

1) Scan to find areas of interest

2) Scan subheads to zero in on subjects

3) Skim copy for keywords and phrases

4) Read to get detail

5) Click to interact

So, don’t get too wrapped up in creating atmosphere. Let your readers get on with the task at hand – whatever that may be.

6. Respect levels of detail
Web readers appreciate getting a basic idea of where they are when they dump onto a page from Google. Levels of detail help establish this understanding, even when other cognitive devices (breadcrumbs, for example) are not available.

In a newspaper, there will be three levels of detail:

- Headline

- Lead

- Full story

On a website, you’ll find:

- Label (often the same as the link)

- Short summary (executive summary)

- Detailed presentation (main subject page)

- Supporting evidence (data sheets, photos, and other contextual elements)

When writing web copy, it helps a lot to understand how your text will be used and where it is positioned in relation to other content elements. That means good writers will also understand the structure of the site on which they are working – the information architecture.

7. Don’t make things too granular
“Granularity” means the extent to which information is spread across multiple web pages. Well, sometimes a cracker is better than a handful of crumbs. So make sure that information that is needed simultaneously appears on the same page. This is a particular problem when plucking interesting features from a data sheet available elsewhere on a site. Again, this is directly related to the work you should be doing to create shared references.

8. Define your goal
Before you write anything, ask yourself:

WHY am I writing this

WHAT is my main message

WHO am I talking to?

HOW do I want them to respond.

Hey, no kidding. How DO you want them to respond? This is how you increase conversion rates! When people have made it to the bottom of the wonderful page you created, give them someplace relevant to go! Don’t make them scroll back to the top.

9. Minimize instructions
Here’s a fabulous example from Steve Krug’s outstanding book, Don’t Make Me Think:

“The following questionnaire is designed to provide us with information that will help us improve the site and make it more relevant to your needs. Please select your answers from the drop-down menus and radio buttons below. The questionnaire should only take you 2-3 minutes to complete.”

OK. Either folks know what a drop-down and radio button is or they don’t. Is there really a reason to tell people which techniques you’ve built into your survey? There’s also too much reference to “us” and “we”. You’re asking the reader to do you a favor. Act appreciative. ´

Here’s how Steve edited out the instructions and turned the message into something that was useful and potentially valuable to readers:

“Please help us provide better on-line service by answering these questions. It should only take you 2-3 minutes to complete this survey.”

Looks easy, but it requires thought. And you have to be aware of the problem, which you now are.

10. Eliminate “happy talk”
Any page that starts with the word “welcome” needs serious rethinking. Get rid of this kind of crap. As I suggested earlier, Kill your darlings – and cut out the first paragraph. This often helps.

Happy talk is often the result of a copywriter not knowing what to say. Go back to No. 8 and revisit your goals. You should have no problem – unless the page is really unnecessary (in which case it should be dropped).

11. Be objective
Drop the hype. People come to your site voluntarily. You don’t need to make a verbal fuss in the same way you would if you were trying to get a magazine reader to stop and read an advertisement. On the web, you want to get to the point and give people valuable information.

In traditional advertising, we use the AIDA model:

Awareness

Interest

Desire

Action

But we’re not talking about traditional media, are we? By the time folks have landed on your site, they’ve passed beyond the “interest” stage. It’s your job to create “desire” and encourage “action”.

12. Be personal
Lighten up. Try and use more “you” than “we”. Although your users may be guests in your house, as a good host you’ll want them to feel welcome. Make them feel as though it is THEIR house.

13. Be concise
Get to the point (I know I’ve said it before). Let folks grab-and-go. They’re not here to savour your fine language.

14. Avoid secret language
Acronyms are dangerous. So is industry slang. In the interest of creating shared references, make sure you don’t use words, expressions, or abbreviations that folks don’t understand (“E27” for example). Again, this is about creating shared references. Spell things out as often as you need to – and don’t worry about repetition.

15. Make stuff scanable, skimable, usable
Start by identifying trigger words and keywords make them easy to spot (keyword: “shirt” trigger-word: “non-iron”).

Consider bulleted lists as these are easier to skim than sentences. They improve overview and give you a navigational option (hyperlinked lists) General rule of thumb: use bullets for:

- features

- subjects

- ideas

Use numbered bullets for:

- sequential tasks

- ranking

- lists where the total number is somehow relevant (20 tips, for example)

16. Write communicative subheads
Subheads make text easy to scan, even while scrolling (or perhaps particularly while scolling). In general, you’ll want a subhead to be visible at all times on your screen.

You might want to consider writing your subheads as questions (as long as you don’t turn your text into a FAQ). In most cases, you should use more subheads online than you would in print.

Good subheads signal that the story is going to get even better. And truly great subheads tell site visitors a story even if they don’t read the details in the actual text:

“I used to be a poor ditchdigger”

 “Then I discovered my writing ability”

 “Now I am a top content strategist on the web”

17. Write accurate labels
Labels and link text will almost always be the same as the headline of the page on which folks arrive. You want to keep these short and direct. They are often the hyperlinks/buttons on which people are clicking.

Make the first word the most important word. When people scan a page, they rarely read the whole sentence/link, they look at the first word, so make it count!

Avoid “cute” headlines. You need to establish a shared reference. As opposed to the title of a magazine article (which is designed to entice and tease), a good label represents a promise to the web visitor: “If you click here, this is exactly what you are going to get.”

18. Go back and edit your work
Do this before you publish your stuff. Do it after you see it online. Do it again next week (this article will be different the next time you look).

Keep asking yourself:

“Is this clear?”

“Is there a simpler way to say this?”

“Is there a shorter way to say this?”

“Is this even necessary?”

19. Remember to write the “invisible” text
About 10% of all web text is only read by machines – metadata. But it is incredibly important in terms of search engine optimization. Here’s the stuff you’ll need to provide for every page:

Meta title
Search engines see this first and the title functions as the link on which folks click in Google, MSN, etc. The meta title is primary text in the current search algorithms, so don’t dismiss it lightly! The first word should be the “killer term” but don’t start with the name of your company except on your home page. Most browsers cut the meta title off at about 65 characters, so be concise.

Meta description
This is the text Google displays on the two lines just under the link, so use it to grab people’s attention and play off your page title. Remember to include keywords and triggers. But kept the description to about 140 characters with spaces or Google will cut it off.

Meta keywords
Some experts say that the search engines don’t register the keywords. This isn’t true, so make sure you write them. Here’s how to do it:

- word or short phrase

- comma

- space

- new word or short phrase

And remember to write alt attributes for images and graphics, particularly stuff that is hyperlinked. You may know these as “alt tags”, which is the incorrect, but more popular term.

20. Don’t let anyone talk you into increasing keyword density for SEO
You cannot bore people into buying a product or exhibiting interest for a service. Keyword density is bullshit, plain and simple. Yes, it will get you a higher rank on Google, but it won’t improve your conversion rate. The same is true for keyword frequency (closely related to keyword density even if the official definition is a little different) “Optimization” means getting customers, not getting hits. If you’re really interested in improving SEO, here’s how to do it:

- Write worthwhile content

            Build shared references

            Answer questions

            Create value

- Write relevant metadata

            Title

            Keywords

            Description

            Alt text for graphics

- Write clean code

            <h1>Headline tags</h1>

            <p>Call to action closing paragraphs</p>

            Close “if” and “while” statements

- Get listed:

            Open Directory

            Yahoo!

            LookSmart

And in closing…
There’s a lot more to say about the subject, but this should kick-start your “writing for the web” process. Other sources include:

FatDUX bibliography and key links
http://www.fatdux.com/resources.html

Very good writing guide from MIT
http://libstaff.mit.edu/webgroup/writing/layer.html

Excellent links and initiatives from Yale University
http://www.library.yale.edu/eli/instruction/webwriting.html
 
Jakob Nielsen’s slightly outdated “Writing for the web”
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Sun Microsystems web-writing guide
http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/

Books I like
Letting Go of the Words
Ginny Redish
(Morgan Kaufmann, 2007)

Web Word Wizardry
Rachel McAlpine
(Ten Speed Press, 2002)

Web Copy That Sells
Maria Veloso
(Amacom, 2005)

Hot Text: web writing that works
Jonathan and Lisa Price
(New Riders, 2002)

Call to Action
Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg ( with Lisa T. Davis)
(Nelson Business, 2006)

The Internet Writer’s Handbook
Martha Sammons
(Allyn & Bacon, 1999)

On Writing Well
William Zinsser
(Quill, 2001)

The Elements of Style
William Strunk & E.B. White
(Longman, 1999)

Content Strategy for the Web
Kristina Halvorson
(New Riders, 2009)

Don’t Make Me Think!
Steve Krug
(New Riders, 2006)

Blatant commercial plug
I conduct “Writing for the Web” workshops for companies and organizations throughout Europe. These are custom-designed for your own in-house team and can be half- or full-day events, depending on your needs. These generally run from EUR 3,000 to EUR 6,000 plus travel and per diem. Although there are no limitations to the number of participants, 25 per session is a good maximum number. But three to four participants is also fine as there is more time for individual coaching. If you’re interested, contact me directly at: er (at) fatdux.com.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll follow my ramblings on Twitter: @elreiss.

If you have children, you have been to zoos and theme parks (of course, children are not a mandatory requirement to visit a zoo, but they help). If you have, especially when you are abroad, the Internet is your friend: getting an eagle-view of what’s on store on location, knowing about bars, restaurants, picnic areas, and toilets in advance is invaluable. Not to mention the evenings of fun and anticipation that printing out a map where x marks the spot can offer, thanks to the magic of PDFs.

It is somewhat disappointing then that so many online presences are lacking, uninspiring and provide little information. That is, except for our good friends at the København Zoo. Examples are in the numbers, as they either don’t tell you about special deals or they forget to point out where the facilities are, so useful approaches stand out. One of them is the way Gröna Lund, the tivoli park in Djurgården, Stockholm, offers a quick and extremely clear view of what’s available for your children if you visit. If you click the ‘Attraktioner’ link on the main navigation bar, you land in a page which offers this:

Skim by height

As you can see, it’s a list of all the main attractions. Just above the list you can see radio boxes, and an invitation to Välj längd, to choose an height. Click on the Under 120cm radiobox and you get this:

Attractions available to children under 120cm

which is the complete list of attractions available to children (and hence families) under one meter twenty centimeters tall. This is simple and straightforward, as most of good design is, but invaluable.

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Information architect Polina Tarnopolsky recently asked on LinkedIn:

“Do you find some things to be really annoying in regards to technology? Whether that’s a buzz-word like “web 2.0”, or endless expert advice on usability tips, or when every graphical element these days just seems to have rounded corners and gradient…

“Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining about these things I’m just trying to gather information on what people find to be somewhat overdone, over-discussed or just simply too much of it – in regards to technology today.”

Here’s my answer – which also hints at new FatDUX web development products and services.

There are three sides to this issue: fashion, fad, and fact. Most people don’t differentiate.

Web 2.0 is nothing particularly new. I was doing AJAXy sites long before Jesse James Garrett came up with the acronym. And eBay is the quintessential user-defined content site. And that’s from 1996. So clearly, buzzwords and buzzwordy concepts (like Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0) get to be a little much at times. Let’s be honest, not every site needs a blog, wiki, or social networking component. Maybe some better owner-generated content is what’s really needed.

So much for fad.

Rounded corners on buttons are fashion. Just like the current web-style, which consists of a row of tabs, a big useless picture, and three other text block/links below this. Honestly, if you like this design, you can download a skin from Dotster for about 60 dollars. Why pay an expensive designer for eye candy? Unless you think that design might consist of something more…:)

So much for fashion.

I was recently interviewed by a Danish journalist who told me, “All that usability crap. That’s such old news. Don’t you have anything new to say?” The fact is, most sites are still pretty atrocious and could use a kick in the pants from the usability crowd.

Sad fact of life – fashion and fad are much more interesting than web stats, server logs, conversion rates, or customer satisfaction. I for one, am looking forward to the economic downturn so that people start thinking about issues that are really important and questioning some of the overblown solutions that are being sold to them.

Let me really stick my neck out…

I just saw the slides for an information-architecture presentation held by a leading purveyor of courses and workshops. Yikes. I didn’t understand half of it. And the half I did understand clearly wasn’t going to make much business difference in the long run. Just a lot of curious ways to play with data. But like monkeys who play with their own feces, we clearly love our data – we pooped it out so it must be valuable.

I honestly believe that some of the fancy tools we know and love (content models and personas just to mention two), are going to be reborn in a simpler, more streamlined, less expensive forms as clients insist on seeing return on investment – not from a project in total, but from the value of the individual tools.

Here’s a simple analogy: I need to hang a picture on my wall. I could use a hammer and nail, but my local hardware store has talked me into drywall plugs, brass screws, and a cordless drill that will help me make the hole I need.

My point is that there is nothing wrong with any of these tools. However, the second solution is much more expensive, though without adding any perceivable value to my project.

I say, put your money where you get the most bang for the buck.

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