Writing for Online Audiences
The aim of this section is to show the importance of communicating through our website and Intranet and basic guidelines for effective and accessible writing and design.
When writing for our website or Intranet, it is important to remember that people will read and interact with the information you provide differently than they would with a printed document.
When looking for information online, people will tend to ‘scan’ the information, rather than reading it. This means that people will very often not read things in order that you may expect.
People will only spend a few seconds viewing a page before navigating away when looking for information. So you need to make sure your content is written and presented in a way that provides the information they want quickly and easily.
In order to gain access to the website or Intranet content management systems, staff must have been approved by the E Communications Team and have had appropriate training through the Effective E Communications course.
Some of the good practice covered by the Effective E Communications course is listed below. These points are relevant to anyone who is creating content which will be published online.
General writing
- The information must be accurate.
- The information must be up to date (avoid writing ‘tomorrow’,’ next week’ or ‘yesterday’ as the information will be out of date very quickly).
- The information and language should be appropriate for the page’s target audience.
- The main points should be clear and easy to follow. Structure your page so that the main points are first, as people will be reluctant to scroll down the page.
- Keep it short. A good page length is under 300 words (anything longer should be split over more than one page, or you can give people the option to download a version they can print out and read).
- Paragraphs should be short, with one idea per paragraph. Space between text helps to refresh the eye when reading from a screen.
- Sentences should be short with one idea per sentence.
- Try to be specific (‘It’s raining’ rather than the ‘weather’s bad’).
- Make sure you use plain words where possible (for example, ‘start’ not ‘commence’). This helps to make the webpage easier to read.
- The page should be shorter than 3 screen depths (Any more than this, and the information either needs to be shortened, or spread over more than one page).
- Make sure your pages meet or refer to all current acts, legislations and regulations. When new ones are brought out make sure you update your information accordingly.
Editing
- On the website, heading styles and text sizes must be consistent with the website standards.
- Text should be aligned left, as this is the easiest to read quickly. Make sure that text is not fully justified, as this makes it harder to read on screen.
- Make sure there are no spelling mistakes.
- The punctuation should be appropriate. In particular, check apostrophes and exclamation marks.
- Words should not be written in capitals to add emphasis (this disguises the shape of the word, making it harder to read, and looks like you are SHOUTING).
- Text should not be underlined (underlined text looks like a link and can be confusing, use bold instead to add emphasis if appropriate).
- Make sure there is as little jargon as possible.
- If an acronym has been used, it should be explained in full the first time it is used on that page.