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editorial style online style photography

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EDITORIAL STYLE ONLINE STYLE PHOTOGRAPHY Online style

For most Web writing you should assume that your carefully crafted prose will not be read word by word. This is not the case, of course, for texts such as journal articles or teaching materials: in many cases these more complicated texts will be printed and read offline. But most online information is best presented using short segments of texts written in a clear, concise style and with ample use of editorial landmarks.

Prose style

Our writing style example below explains the steps involved in creating a successful Web site. The first style is vague and verbose. The second is concise: we simply list the facts. It is this second writing style that is most suitable for Web documents. Most Web readers are looking for information, and they find it not by reading a Web page word by word but rather by scanning the page for relevant items.

Vague and verbose. You must read every word in this paragraph in order to understand the steps involved in creating Web sites:

Web site development is a complex process that involves many steps and tasks that range from budgeting to design and evaluation. First, you need to define the scope of your project and determine a budget for site development. Then you need to survey and map the structure of your information. The next step is to establish a look and feel for your site, and then comes the actual construction of your site. Once your site is finished you need to make sure people know that it's there and how to find it. Finally, you should spend time evaluating your site's effectiveness. As you embark on the process of developing a Web site, keep these steps in mind and make sure that you have the organizational backing, budget, and personnel you need to make the project a success.

Concise and factual. In this version, we turned the wordy explanation of the process into a concise list of steps to follow:

The process of developing a Web site generally follows these steps:

Site definition and budgeting
Information architecture
Site design
Site construction
Site marketing
Tracking and evaluation

Before beginning to develop a Web site, make sure you have the organizational backing, budget, and personnel you need to perform these steps successfully.

Other stylistic considerations

Be frugal. Make sure that the text you present is worth something to the reader. Avoid empty chatter like welcome text or instructions on how to use the site. Users should be able to determine who you are by your navigation and page design, and your interface should be clear enough that it doesn't require instructions. Don't use the first paragraph of each page to tell users what information they'll find there. Instead, start with the information, written in the concise and factual prose style shown above.
Stick to the point. Write in easily understood sentences. Steer clear of clever headings and catchy but meaningless phrases that users must think about and explore further to understand.
Cultivate a voice. Web readers welcome a measure of individuality from their information sources. With so many competing sources, a unique voice may help distinguish your pages, but beware of going "over the top." When it comes to attitude, there is a fine line between engaging and annoying.
Think globally. Remember that you are designing documents for the World Wide Web and that your audience may not understand conventions specific to your little corner of the world. For example, when including dates, use the international date format of day / month / year . Also, avoid metaphors and puns that may make sense only in the context of your language and culture.

source EDITORIAL STYLE ONLINE STYLE PHOTOGRAPHY http://webstyleguide.com

typography consistency photography

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TYPOGRAPHY CONSISTENCY PHOTOGRAPHY Consistency

As in traditional print publishing, high-quality Web sites adhere to established type style settings consistently throughout the site. Consistency gives polish to a site and encourages visitors to stay by creating an expectation about the structure of a text. If sloppy, inconsistent formatting confounds this expectation, you will confuse your readers and they may not return.

You should decide on such settings as fonts, inter-paragraph spacing, the size of subheads, and so on and then create a written style guide to help you maintain these settings as you develop the site. This step is especially critical for large sites that incorporate numerous pages.

If you choose to use CSS you will have powerful tools to maintain the consistency of styles throughout your site. This is particularly true if you opt to use a master style sheet for your whole site via the "Link" option in CSS .

Example: Plain HTML page


Example: Page with HTML and CSS

source TYPOGRAPHY CONSISTENCY PHOTOGRAPHY http://webstyleguide.com

site design chunking information photography

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SITE DESIGN CHUNKING INFORMATION PHOTOGRAPHY "Chunking" information

Most information on the World Wide Web is gathered in short reference documents that are intended to be read nonsequentially. This is particularly true of sites whose contents are mostly technical or administrative documents. Long before the Web was invented, technical writers discovered that readers appreciate short "chunks" of information that can be located and scanned quickly. This method for presenting information translates well to the Web for several reasons:

Few Web users spend time reading long passages of text on-screen. Most users either save long documents to disk or print them for more comfortable reading.
Discrete chunks of information lend themselves to Web links. The user of a Web link usually expects to find a specific unit of relevant information, not a book's worth of general content. But don't overly subdivide your information or you will frustrate your readers. One to two pages of information is about the maximum size for a discrete chunk of information on the Web.
Chunking can help organize and present information in a uniform format. This allows users not only to apply past experience with a site to future searches and explorations but also to predict how an unfamiliar section of a Web site will be organized.
Concise chunks of information are better suited to the computer screen, which provides a limited view of long documents. Long Web pages tend to disorient readers; they require users to scroll long distances and to remember what is off-screen.

The concept of a chunk of information must be flexible and consistent with common sense, logical organization, and convenience. Let the nature of the content suggest how it should be subdivided and organized. At times it makes sense to provide long documents as a subdivided and linked set of Web pages. Although short Web documents are usually preferable, it often makes little sense to divide a long document arbitrarily, particularly if you want users to be able to print easily or save the entire document in one step.

Hierarchy of importance
Hierarchical organization is virtually a necessity on the Web. Most sites depend on hierarchies, moving from the most general overview of the site , down through increasingly specific submenus and content pages. Chunks of information should be ranked in importance and organized by the interrelations among units. Once you have determined a logical set of priorities, you can build a hierarchy from the most important or general concepts down to the most specific or detailed topics.

Relations
When confronted with a new and complex information system, users build mental models. They use these models to assess relations among topics and to guess where to find things they haven't seen before. The success of the organization of your Web site will be determined largely by how well your system matches your users' expectations. A logical site organization allows users to make successful predictions about where to find things. Consistent methods of displaying information permit users to extend their knowledge from familiar pages to unfamiliar ones. If you mislead users with a structure that is neither logical nor predictable, they will be frustrated by the difficulties of getting around. You don't want your users' mental model of your Web site to look like this:

Function
Once you have created your site, analyze its functionality. Efficient Web site design is largely a matter of balancing the relation of menu, or home, pages with individual content pages. The goal is to build a hierarchy of menus and pages that feels natural to users and doesn't mislead them or interfere with their use of the site.

Web sites with too shallow a hierarchy depend on massive menu pages that can degenerate into a confusing "laundry list" of unrelated information:

Menu schemes can also be too deep, burying information beneath too many layers of menus. Having to navigate through layers of nested menus before reaching real content is frustrating:

If your Web site is actively growing, the proper balance of menus and content pages is a moving target. Feedback from users can help you decide if your menu scheme has outlived its usefulness or has weak areas. Complex document structures require deeper menu hierarchies, but users should never be forced into page after page of menus if direct access is possible. With a well-balanced, functional hierarchy you can offer users menus that provide quick access to information and reflect the organization of your site.

Summary
The most important step in planning your site is to organize your information. Thinking carefully about what you want to say and how you want to say it requires that you become intimately acquainted with your site content. Create outlines, chunk your information into sections and subsections, think about how the sections relate to one another, and create a table of contents. This exercise will help immensely when it comes time to build the individual pages of your site and may determine the eventual success of your Web site.

A well-organized table of contents can be a major navigation tool in your Web site. The table is more than a list of links — it gives the user an overview of the organization, extent, and narrative flow of your presentation:

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source SITE DESIGN CHUNKING INFORMATION PHOTOGRAPHY http://webstyleguide.com

site design resource lists, other related sites pages photography

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SITE DESIGN RESOURCE LISTS, OTHER RELATED SITES PAGES PHOTOGRAPHY Resource lists, "other related sites" pages

The World Wide Web is growing so rapidly that even the large commercial Web index services such as Yahoo! and Excite are only partial listings of the information accessible through the Web. When authors begin to build Web sites, their first page is often a collection of favorite links to sites related to their profession, industry, or interests. In a corporate or institutional site, a well-edited, well-maintained "Other useful sites" page may be the most valuable and heavily used resource.

source SITE DESIGN RESOURCE LISTS, OTHER RELATED SITES PAGES PHOTOGRAPHY http://webstyleguide.com