Module 3 Tasks - WWW Standards

Make a summary of what you believe are the 5 most important ‘rules’ for writing online. Think about any differences between the articles: for example, is the advice in Nielsen’s paper -- written in 1997 – still current?

• Scannable text

For writing on-line almost every reference will highlight the importance of scannable text. Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html ) goes to great lengths to demonstrate text that is concise, scannable, and objective achieves a far greater usability.

Nielson moves on to explain (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html) in mathematical terms how users ultimately spend very little time reading the actual text on web pages.

Although his thoughts are now over 10 years old the concept of scannable text is still very applicable today, as it precisely captures the intent of web browsers. Scanning is a quick examination of the text for relevant words or phrases and if unfound the uers will move away from the web page within a short space of time.

• Paragraph, paragraph and more paragraphs

Use lots of paragraphs when writing simply becasue putting data into large paragraphs without any spaces or line breaks is hard to read, and annoying.

More on this later.

• Meaningful links

While it is a great novely to click on a link to see where it goes, it's just down right rude if the link is a misrepresentation, and annoying.

"the misuse of links is perhaps the most common failure of Web authors" (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/text.html). This says it all really - so don't do it!

to be completed..