How to write for the Web, based on user studies:
- Tone: Write like you are talking to a friend. Do not talk down to users. Avoid self-serving language or overblown claims: it turns people off and makes them doubt you. Present the facts and let users come to their own conclusions.
- Reading level: Write to a sixth-grade level (six years of schooling) for your main content. For content deeper in your site, you can go up to an eighth-grade level. There are websites that can measure the reading level of your content. If it is too high, use shorter words, sentences and paragraphs. “Causes cancer” is way better than “carcinogenic”.
- Jargon, acronyms, sarcasm, humour, idioms – avoid these. Not everyone will understand them. An idiom is an expression like “happy as a clam” or “caught with your pants down”. For those who know little or no English, they do not translate well and draw attention away from what you are saying.
- The first two sentences: these should make your main points. Everything else on the page is there to support it or add to it. Newspapers do this. They call it the inverted pyramid.
- Bolding: this should allow users to quickly scan your page and find the information they want. Too much bolding, though, will make your page look busy. Do not bold whole sentences or long phrases.
- Paragraphs: these should have only one idea, should start with a topic sentence and be no more than five sentences long. Users read the beginning of a paragraph to see if they want to read the rest of it. They avoid longer paragraphs.
- Vertical lists: these are easier to read than a list buried in a paragraph. But do not use too many or for lists with fewer than four things. Use numbered lists for things that go in a certain order, a bulleted list for those that do not. Put a sentence or phrase before the list to show what it is about.
- Page titles, headings, links: these should be short, plain and descriptive. They should guide the user to and through your content. If you are too cute or clever, users will skip over them. Studies show that in Internet searches, users often only look at the first few words of your title. Keep headings to under 60 characters, left-justified. Do not use ALL CAPS.
- Pages: Users do not like to stay on a page for too long. After a point they want to click on something. So it is better to have several short pages than one long one. But divide the content in a way that makes sense – do not just have links that say “Continue” or “Next Page”. Each page has to make sense on its own. Because of search engines, any user can land on any page of your website.
– Abagond, 2015.
Source: “Prioritizing Web Usability” (2006) by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger.
See also:
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““Causes cancer” is way better than “carcinogenic”.”
No it isn’t. Because they don’t mean the same thing. This blog post could be summed up as “write as if your audience isn’t all that bright”.
Also:
“Source: “Prioritizing Web Usability” (2006) by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger.”
2006. 2006! Seriously, that’s like using “How to use leeches to cure illness” as a guide for modern medicine.
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“Write to a sixth-grade level (six years of schooling)”. Seriously? Not only have I been insulted, but if I had any doubt about my insultiness(I know that’s not a word}, you made sure that I knew what you meant by adding “six years of schooling”, because retarded people such as myself don’t know what sixth-grade level means. Abagond… are you having a bad day???
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I know a Sharpie pen when I see one, even perched in that journal. Great for scrawling.🙂
Paige
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For the web, you have to write at a simple level (6th-8th grade reading level) and keep it short and organized for skimming if your goal is to reach a general audience that finds your stuff through means such as search engines.
Otherwise, you should be writing a book or magazine article.
If your purpose is just to write for yourself, then it doesn’t matter.
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the sixth grade level is about right for some but i do not with that all of the time. You just have to know your audience.
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i have a hard time expressing what i’m thinking, it’s like a decompression routine to get all that stuff out, and then it’s referring to other stuff that typically is fairly abstruse, omg, i’m lucky to just get it out, i don’t know if i could break it down to a 5th grade level, maybe because i was reading at a 5th grade level in kindergarten, that’s just me
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Overall, I pretty much concur with the majority of this web writing advice-I mean, has anyone read comments from the average web browser? Not exactly Shakespearean-inspired bon mots for the most part, is it? Lbvs
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I write grammatically on a 5th or 6th grade level because I never paid attention in school.
I read a lot of books and that helps me write better. But I’m not able to edit easily what I write because the errors I make aren’t obvious to me. I can’t spell either.
I agree with Abagond ‘ recommendations.
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@ naishee
What has changed since 2006 that would change the advice given? I am asking that seriously.
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@ Ben Munday
Sixth grade is for a general audience. It seems low to me too. I would have said eighth grade, which is what I believe USA Today aims at.
At a ninth grade level you would lose 43% of the general audience in the US, almost half, so sixth grade is probably safe.
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@ Ben Munday
I put in the bit about six years because when the British talk about, say, third form, I am not sure what it means. I think it means eighth grade, but that is guess. Therefore I am not sure how understandable “sixth grade” is worldwide.
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Abagond, given that you write so carefully, I am surprised you’d advocate as deceptive a mis-equation as “carcinogenic” to “causes cancer.”
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@ n0mad6
This post presents recommendations based on user studies. I do not necessarily agree with all of it. The carcinogenic thing is their example.
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Re: Abagond’s
The American International school in Hong Kong has made up a table comparing Form 3 in HK to the equivalent school year in the US and UK systems. They say Form 3 corresponds to US 9th grade (which I agree with — the 3rd year of secondary school, assuming primary school is 1st-6th grade).
(http://www.ais.edu.hk/admissions/how-apply/starting-age-guide-grade-equivalents)
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5th grade level? Naaaa, plus, then you can’t curse either! Call it limiting the audience, i’ll live with it
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I definitely will refer back to this post when writing future posts!
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