OSS Watch team blog

My worst nightmare at school was having to think of something for show and tell. I had the same feeling today, when I was asked to write a blog post as part of my new job as content editor for OSS Watch.

I have never written a blog before, and seldom read them, so I had a few questions for my colleagues. What shall I write about? Oh, anything really. Who am I writing for? Oh, anyone and everyone. Scary. All the more so because blogging is  personal and immediate – quite the opposite of the book publishing process I am used to, where the product is carefully crafted over several weeks or months and there’s a team to share the responsibility.

Luckily I went on a course yesterday, so at least I have something to write about. The course was called Writing for the Web, and I was keen to go on it because I wanted to know how the writing and editing processes for the Web differ from those in book publishing.

The course outline looked very promising: devising a strategy for your website; understanding how people read online; structuring your information; writing skills; managing your website; editing and proofreading; and creating reusable material. For me, it didn’t quite deliver on all fronts, but I did pick up some useful tips:

• a website should not be seen as whole, and is non-linear, unlike most books
• reading on screen is uncomfortable, so presentation is important (see http://webpagesthatsuck.com for examples of how not to do it)
• consider the reader’s environment and accessibility issues
• use storyboarding to plan the site, and to demonstrate layout of screens and navigation links
• navigation reflects the relationship between information and also readers’ need to access it
• people don’t read the text, they scan it, so make it scannable: use highlighted keywords, meaningful sub-headings and bulleted lists
• keep headings short; the first two words are the most important
• paragraphs should contain a maximum of two sentences
• keep it short and simple (see http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/) and focus on the action
• avoid ’speed bumps’: inconsistent use of terms, jargon, slang, non-descriptive headings, marketing hype

All in all, it was a useful day away from the office. I will now be able to look at our website in a new light, and think about how we could apply some of these principles to improve it, and the documents we write for it, for our readers. Pity we didn’t cover blogging.