Writing in Russian cyrillic script with a fountain pen. Picture: Petar Milošević, Wikimedia Commons
Is writing for the web different from any other kind of writing?
The short answer is not really.
Writing on any platform should follow the same basic rules: good sense, good grammar and spelling, good reasoning. Clarity and conciseness. Lack of jargon. No padding… and so on.
That said, there are some things that need special attention on the web – and those are largely to do with the fact that the reader is not looking a text on a page. Let’s break this down.
When you are reading text on a page:
* You can see the text in a large context – if it’s in a newspaper or magazine, you can see the article in one glance along with its pictures and headlines and pull quotes and so on.
* You are likely to be spending a little time with text – with a book or a newspaper, there’s a built-in expectation that the reader has sat down metaphorically with a cup of tea or coffee and is going to read and inwardly digest as the saying goes.
When you are reading text on a screen:
* You don’t necessarily see all the related content at once – you have to scroll in one way or another to get to the pictures and other illustrations.
* You might be looking at a phone or a tablet in very small bits of time – quickly in a queue, or while sitting at a traffic light.
Studies suggest that people scan screens in particular ways – there is a whole field of research called eyetracking with keeps tabs on this, and the latest research suggests that people scan a page in a F-Shaped pattern. There’s a lot of detail on that but the takeaway for the purposes of this articles is making an assumption that people start at the top of an article and read to the bottom is not useful. Research also shows that when people encounter text which is not formatted for the web, they are likely to lose interest and click away:
“the vast majority of the web users would rather finish their tasks as fast as possible with the minimum amount of effort; they visit a page because they want to find a quick answer rather than read a dissertation on the topic and educate themselves.”
So the way in which text is formatted can be very important in keeping people reading. Vital elements of formatting for the web (or the smartphone) include:
- Bolding important words
- Bulleted lists (like this one!)
- Headings and subheadings
- Making sure the important information is easy to find
- Visually grouping related content
- Including pictures, maps and graphics
In other words, break the text up. Long screens on text simply don’t cut it!