Style advice from the CIA
Writing tips from the CIA’s ruthless style manual It is always fascinating to see how other organisations attempt to keep their writing consistent via their style guides. A good style guide is a mixture of common sense…
Search by category: content
Guides, news, etc relating to web content.
The web is for doing
Print is view, web is do Organisations can sometimes forget that users normally come to a website to do something. The temptation is sometimes to cover the website with glossy images or screeds of happy talk. But this…
Fact-driven web content
Interesting facts make webpages compelling Web users are task-driven and looking for information. They also dislike “marketese” and “happy talk” (or, as Jakob Nielsen calls it in this article, “blah-blah”). As such, it…
A/B test demonstrates that content is still king
One link on Gov.uk – 350,000 more organ donors Here is a fascinating article from the Government Digital Service about A/B testing, where different users are shown different versions of a page so that you can see which…
Why we should use plain English
It’s not dumbing down, it’s opening up Here is another great video from the Government Digital Service, this time outlining its approach towards using plain English throughout the website. The big one, and the one I…
Eliminate happy talk
On the web, context kills, speed saves Here is an article from Gerry McGovern about one of my pet peeves, happy talk. Web users are highly task driven, and they are not interested in our content attempting to set a…
How web teams work, content strategy, and personas
Great web teams are highly collaborative A couple of weeks ago this newsletter featured some of the lessons learned by the Norwegian Cancer Society about how important user-centred design is for increasing their…
The importance of content
Three interesting articles about content that I have come across recently. The importance of copywriting for UX Interesting examples of poor copywriting, and why it is important to write in plain language. Respect your…