Accessibility—“I can find what I’m looking for.”Is the Web a different world? Yes and no. Must we discard all we know and I learn to write in a whole new way? No. Are we free to break the shackles of grammar and style, to express ourselves however we choose? No.
Writing for the Web is different from writing for a print publication, but the factors that matter most are who the readers are and how they will interact with the medium. Writers have been taking those factors into consideration since they first set quill to papyrus.
The people we call Web users are, when all is said and done, readers. Thus, you may have heard it said that writing, organizing, and editing Web content (and other electronic content read onscreen) is no different from writing, organizing, and editing for print. Good writing is good writing, in any medium! Well, yes and no.
Web content isn’t just a plugged-in version of regular old writing-for-the-page. Web style integrates content and presentation in ways directly pegged to the capabilities of online information search, navigation, linking, and sharing—four fundamental capabilities unmatched by even the most carefully planned and executed print publications.
Here’s what Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton say about Web style in their lucid, comprehensive Web Style Guide (webstyleguide.com):
We seek clarity, order, and trustworthiness in information sources, whether traditional paper documents or Web pages. Effective page design can provide this confidence.... Visual and functional continuity in your Web site organization, graphic design, and typography are essential to convincing your audience that your Web site offers them timely, accurate, and useful information. A careful, systematic approach to page design can simplify navigation, reduce user errors, and make it easier for readers to take advantage of the information and features of the site.
We’re in complete agreement that site usability and functionality matter tremendously; in fact, in this section, organizing means applying these attributes of online content proactively on behalf of the typical intended reader:
Accessibility—“I can find what I’m looking for.”
Orientation—“I understand where I am in the hierarchy of a site or a document.”
Navigation—“I know how to go forward and back from a starting point and return from cross-linked information.”
Interactivity—“I have a say in how I access and gather the information I need.”
Readability—“I can assimilate facts and data easily because heads, subheads, captions, and bulleted lists allow me to skim incrementally through content.”
Utility—“I can immediately see the relevance or irrelevance of this content to my needs, which helps me winnow my options.” (It’s equally “useful” to Web users knowing which sources to skip and which to focus on.)
A perfect example of well-organized Web text that maximizes those attributes is shown on the facing page.
Let’s pretend that we live in an ideal world. There, if we knew that printed information is also destined for the Web, instead of re-editing it after the fact, we would take into account from the very beginning what current research tells us about the act of reading online.
In a nutshell, writing and editing effectively for the Web require us to make different assumptions about readers, and about the act of reading. To that end, we recommend that you consult the excellent “Editorial Style” discussion in the Lynch-Horton Web Style Guide (webstyleguide.com/style/online-style.html) and subscribe to Jakob Nielsen’s free AlertBox newsletters (sign up at useit.com).
For example, from Lynch-Horton’s first-rate, nuanced summary of “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 out and read offline. But most online information is best presented using short segments of text written in a clear, concise style and with ample use of editorial landmarks.
HTML TECHNIQUES FOR WEB CONTENT ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES 1.0:
W3C NOTE 6, NOVEMBER 2000
This version: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-WCAG10-HTML-TECHS-20001106/ (plain text, PostScript, PDF, gzip tar file of HTML, zip archive of HTML)
Latest version: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/
Previous version: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-WCAG10-HTML-TECHS-20000920/
Editors:
Wendy Chisholm, W3C;
Gregg Vanderheiden, Trace R & D Center University of Wisconsin—Madison;
Ian Jacobs, W3C
Copyright ©1999–2000 W3C ® (MIT, INRIA, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
Abstract
This document describes techniques for authoring accessible Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) content (refer to HTML 4.01 [HTML4]). This document is intended to help authors of Web content who wish to claim conformance to “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0” ([WCAG10]). While the techniques in this document should help people author HTML that conforms to “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0”, these techniques are neither guarantees of conformance nor the only way an author might produce conforming content.
This document is part of a series of documents about techniques for authoring accessible Web content. For information about the other documents in the series, please refer to “Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0” [WCAG10-TECHS].
Note: This document contains a number of examples that illustrate accessible solutions in CSS but also deprecated examples that illustrate what content developers should not do. The deprecated examples are highlighted and readers should approach them with caution—they are meant for illus-trative purposes only.
Status of this document
This version has been published to correct some broken links in the previous version.
The 6 November 2000 version of this document is a Note in a series of Notes produced and endorsed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG). This Note has not been reviewed or endorsed by W3C Members. The series of documents supersedes the single document 5 May 1999 W3C Note “Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0”. The topics from the earlier document have been separated into technology-specific documents that may evolve independently. Smaller technology-specific documents allow authors to focus on a particular technology.
While the “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0” Recommendation [WCAG10] is a stable document, this series of companion documents is expected to evolve as technologies change and content developers discover more effective techniques for designing accessible Web content.
The history of changes to the series of documents as well as the list of open and closed issues are available. Readers are encouraged to comment on the document and propose resolutions to current issues. Please send detailed comments on this document to the Working Group at w3c-wai-gl@w3.org; public archives are available.
The English version of this specification is the only normative version. Translations of this document may be available.
The list of known errors in this document is available at “Errata in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines”. Please report errors in this document to wai-wcag-editor@w3.org.
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) makes available a variety of resources on Web accessibility. WAI Accessibility Guidelines are produced as part of the WAI Technical Activity. The goals of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group are described in the charter.
A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents is available.
We suggest that such guidance works just as well for many kinds of printed texts—a beneficial influence of the Web on communication generally. Conversely, in the mechanical sense of the word style, there’s no reason to deviate from your print standards: If you follow AP style in your print publications, follow it in your Web publications. There is no universal Web style, just as there is no universal print style.
But some core editorial conventions are accepted by first-rate Web publishers—and they matter more than ever, as the sheer range and quality of publications available online increases:
Be concise. A widely accepted statistic is that people read 25 percent more slowly on a computer screen than on paper. The corollary is that a document written for the Web should be 25 to 50 percent shorter than one written for print—roughly, not literally. Web content should be no longer than—but as long as—it needs to be in order to say what it has to say.
Chunk copy. Use short paragraphs, lots of subheads, and displayed lists for a series of three or more items, if they require emphasis or if each item is more than a few words long. It’s not as comfortable to read text on a computer screen, and it’s difficult to distinguish certain punctuation marks, such as commas and colons, onscreen. Think in terms of about 1,000 words per screen. Each chunk should be somewhat self-contained, with links connecting it to the other chunks of the document. If you’re accustomed to outlining before you write, you may want to sketch how each chunk of your document relates to the others.
Write strong prose. Online readers can become distracted. Not just brevity but fresh, lively writing and accurate delivery of information are requisites for “sticky” online content that engages their attention.
Think globally. Remember that most of the world uses the metric system. When providing US measurements for distance, speed, etc., also include (alongside, in parentheses) the metric equivalent. (Check your dictionary for a conversion chart.) Avoid using the # symbol to indicate pounds; a single quote to indicate feet; and double quotes to indicate inches. These marks aren’t recognized everywhere outside the United States. Also avoid metaphors, puns, shorthand, and date-time conventions that won’t make sense outside American English and mainstream US culture.
A bit of conventional wisdom is that Web writing is more personal and less formal than print writing. The best writing seems to speak directly to the individual reader, even if, in fact, those readers number in the millions. As for being less formal, it’s true that the first and second person are widely accepted online; it’s not true that errors of spelling or grammar are okay on the Web. In fact, since readers of Web pages may have little information about the publisher, such errors can detract seriously from a document’s credibility: “If these people can’t even check their spelling, how likely are they to check their facts?” Speaking of credibility....
The creators of ARPANET messaging, a precursor to Internet e-mail, published a paper in 1978 in which they approved of how “one could write tersely and type imperfectly, even to an older person in a superior position and even to a person one did not know very well, and the recipient took no offense.”
As for one of the most interactive and prevalent aspects of our publishing lives—e-mail—there’s still debate about how much typos and poor grammar matter in e-mail messages.
Many of the Web’s founders, themselves articulate standard-bearers for civilized communication, nevertheless accept that e-mail is created so quickly it is liable to formal errors. The Jargon File’s own Eric Raymond, replied graciously to the editor of The Editorial Eye, who had apologized for a typo in a note she had sent him: “I never take offense at mistypings in e-mail. I don’t take offense because as long as I know what you mean I don’t even really see the errors.”
Likewise, David Crystal, author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, says he expects anyone who spots a typo in one of his e-mails to think “Crystal must have typed this in a hurry”—not “Crystal doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
And it’s true that e-mail is a communication tool, not a literary genre. It has conventions, just as other forms of communication do. How you write e-mail depends largely on context. If the only e-mails you send are to your children at college, you don’t need to read this section. But if you send business e-mails as well, take another look at what the recipient may be expecting.
Use the subject field. Most e-mail systems display the sender’s name and the subject field before the reader actually opens the message. Try to make your subject field as informative as possible, so a reader faced with a dozen e-mails first thing in the morning will have some idea which to open first.
Keep it brief. People are receiving more e-mails every day. Opening and reading one message may take less than a minute, but the minutes add up fast. There’s no need to be telegraphic—you’re not being charged by the word, after all—but do respect your reader’s time. E-mails are like the interoffice memos of yore. Each should address a single topic, and do so succinctly and clearly.
Skip most emoticons. Smiley faces, winks: Some folks claim that readers won’t know what’s facetious unless they have the cue of an emoticon. For centuries, though, writers have been able to convey humor perfectly well using words alone. If you doubt your ability to do so, dispense with the attempt at humor (not a bad idea in business communications).
Include a formal signature. You can automate a variety of signatures for different occasions, so there’s really no excuse for making people look up your full name and contact information—unless you’re writing a very personal note (not a good idea on your office computer).
Wait a second. Once you hit “send,” that e-mail is gone beyond recall. Before you send it, take a moment to read through it. Is everything spelled correctly? Have you covered your subject clearly? Most important, have you said anything you’ll regret? And check the address box! It’s easy to click on an address one line above or below the one you’re aiming for, and the consequences can range from embarrassing to horrifying. Or you can accidentally reply to an electronic mailing list posting by a friend of yours and end up posting to the entire list—perhaps slamming other list members in public. The ouch really stings.
Web design is relatively easy to get right, once the publishing goals have been identified—and there are many courses and online resources to assist the willing learner (see the appendix for a selection). But editing content for effective organization, with embedded links, selective emphasis, logical segmentation, and a clear focus—that’s a relatively complex undertaking. We’ve never seen it explained in any detail in any Web writing guide. That’s why we’re doing it.
(Note: Visit sciencesitescom.com for the online version from which this material has been adapted, with the permission of Merry Bruns.)
This section is this primarily an overview of the process of thinking about how to edit Web content from the point of view of its intended audience—and that includes an expansion of the definition of editing. As a preface to a systematic, field-tested tutorial for migrating print content to the Web, consider what Dorian Benkoil, editorial director of mediabistro.com, wrote in February 2007:
At the recent Digital Magazine News conference, I thought Endgadget blog chief Peter Rojas might step off the stage and punch a magazine exec who was asserting that readers couldn’t trust blogs because they’re unreliable. But blogging is no more one single thing than TV or radio or magazines are.
No more than the countless sites that make up the Web are one single thing! Web writing isn’t a monolithic activity—any more than writing for print is. Given that fact, this overview can’t do justice to every possible permutation of online style. So, by popular demand, we’re offering a focused, step-by-step demystification of Web style in a specific context. Merry Bruns, a seasoned trainer, shares her patented solution for one of the most challenging aspects of Web publishing in most organizations: how to edit printed content for online access.
The repurposing exercises shed light on the core elements of Web style. Keep in mind the big-picture strategies underlying the details of editing for quick Web access:
Preserve the meaning while more closely focusing the original text.
Minimize screen-reading eyestrain with screen-friendly formatting.
Add value to the original text with judicious use of online-only capabilities.
Build back in useful, optional detail in the form of links, references, graphics, glossaries, etc.
Let’s put those strategies into practical context. Ever seen an exploded diagram of a car engine’s parts? Separating out the engine parts visually makes it easier to grasp the underlying mechanics and learn how to disassemble all or some of the engine and put it back together. That’s one way to think of how to edit printed documents for a Web site: Web publishing offers editors infinite room to take advantage of “exploded” structure, which in turn gives readers infinite possibilities for exploring and assembling information.
Printed material can certainly be migrated successfully. In fact, it’s possible to present complex information from various sources more accessibly to readers on the Web than in print. Yet despite its vaunted informality and flexibility, the Web contains thousands of dense, lengthy documents—difficult enough to absorb in printed format—whose publishers haven’t adapted printed material at all for Web publication. Plain and simple, that’s a mistake.
The term Web editing means rearranging material for greater clarity, rewriting parts in a more suitable style, deciding on the best technical presentation, and supplying new material as needed. In the print world, these roles are often very separate—not so if you’re a Web editor. Here’s what Web editing entails.
Knowing who the readers are and what they need are the most important things to keep in mind as you begin the Web editing process. And please note the plural form readers: Even the most narrowly focused public site has several kinds of potential visitors.
You might think you know who they are already or have a general sense of your core audience. But that’s not good enough. It’s best to step back and analyze any data, anecdotal or otherwise, that you can get your hands on about everybody who is looking at the site, why they’re looking at it, what they expect to find there, and how you can help different readers with different needs—and the same readers with different needs over time. The fact is that most sites have several subaudiences besides a core audience.
If a site is primarily commercial, your focus will be almost entirely on driving readers to learn about (and get excited about) your services—but you may need content for a loyalty program as well as for first-time-buyer incentives. If you’re an association or other membership organization, your site should serve its stakeholders first, then potentially draw in new members—oh, and what about a press room for the media? Education sites have attracting new students and serving current students and alumni as equally important goals—but also usually want to showcase community involvement and national and international achievements of professors, and promote corporate partnerships. For starters.
At the macro level, though, most of us basically have three audience types: the known audience, the unknown (and potentially global) visiting audience, and the potential audience you are not yet reaching. How do you find out more about them?
Start by listing what you come to a Web site for. What features and characteristics make it a favorite or turn you off? Chances are, you prefer a site with content that is immediately accessible, relevant to your interests and goals, and written in conversational, clear language.
By doing this simple exercise, you can learn a great deal about the subtle, emotional, even illogical reasons people choose one site over another:
List the three sites, in widely competitive markets, that you enjoy using most often—say, your favorite travel site, bookselling site, and reference site.
List the reasons that make each of these sites outstanding in their niches.
Now list three comparable sites in the same markets that you don’t choose to regularly visit—you may have to do an online search for competitors, precisely because they don’t come to mind if you don’t use them! List reasons that make each of the rejects less appealing that your three favorites.
You may want to try a variation of this exercise periodically by surveying some of your own site’s readers via e-mail or a small focus group. The ability to second-guess answers to such questions with a fair degree of confidence comes from practicing comparative, critical thinking. We may call people users, but their behaviors and loyalties are less mechanical and more unpredictable than we like to think.
Demo: Showing You Know Your Audience
AARP (aarp.org/learntech/computers)
AARP knows its readers well and knows that the over-fifty crowd is getting online in massive numbers.
With their kids to keep them up to date, and more retirement time for activism and education, AARP members often appreciate help, but they don’t need their hands held. The Computers and Technology content reflects this understanding while also supporting the corporate mission to advocate for seniors, and that’s just good business.
The focus of the articles is on what benefits the AARP member most, and that’s not merely the organization’s news about itself. Topics are timely, and useful for just about anyone (kids included). Sample topics like these:
The central goals of restructuring content for the Web are to make the most important information immediately accessible and to subordinate supporting information. The process of meeting those goals begins with breaking a print document into smaller, more editorially manageable chunks.
Later, you’ll edit and rewrite all this as necessary—obviously, it’ll lack transitions, contextual references, and narrative development. But this is stripping information back to basics. (If you find there’s not much of a “there” left underneath a lot of initially lengthy exposition, you’ve got a different problem. You can’t highlight important information if it isn’t important to begin with. But it’s better to find that out early before posting it for the world to be bored and annoyed by.)
In many cases, “chunking” simply means breaking a well-signposted linear piece down into topics and subtopics. In other cases, though, the process isn’t as neat. The task is to pull out all the main topics and points that a document contains, no matter where they are, or whatever form they take—statements, examples, evidence, phrases, statistics, graphs.
That’s one of the most difficult things for someone new to Web editing: removing transitions, contextual references, and narrative development—the very elements that a print editor strives to strengthen and often supplies. And you will edit back in and rewrite those elements later as needed.
But for now, without any regard for the existing structure, isolate all the key blocks of text for reordering to take advantage of the Web as a publishing medium. These may be statements, examples, evidence, phrases, headlines, direct quotes, whole paragraphs—it’s all being unformatted so it can stand out as vital information.
Not all print editors would tackle the same printed piece the same way; Web editors develop their own work style, too. Some dive into the electronic files of an original document, copying and pasting key points into a new document as they’re identified. Others start by making notes on the original printed version or highlighting statements and paragraphs containing ideas that deserve prominence.
By whatever method, once the informational chunks have been identified and extracted, the task is to reorder them for further editing—making a coherent story following inverted pyramid style, as journalists do. Web readers appreciate a structure that allows them to grasp the main point immediately and decide for themselves how much detail to pursue.
So place the main point/idea/fact first, followed by the rest in descending order of importance. “Descending order of importance” to whom? To your multiple known and potential audiences, of course—whose needs and interests you’ve had in mind from the beginning. Set aside anything that doesn’t directly support any of the main ideas.
It’s time to create a hierarchical draft of the revised material from the main message(s) and supporting information you’ve pulled out; set aside (but do not delete) anything that doesn’t directly support the main argument.
At this point, you’ll have pages (probably printed-out and well scribbledon) of content that’s about ready to put online. Now it’s time to think about laying out text for easy scanning (critical skimming). You need to format it, which means creating a text layout that will make it possible for your readers to skim for the main points and the general direction of the material. If they find something that interests them, perhaps they’ll test-drive a bit of supporting information to see whether there’s depth here worth attention.
If you’ve formatted text so people can quickly assess its relevance, even if they leave the site, you’ve shown respect for their time by not making them invest a lot of it in figuring out what you’re up to. That’s an equally important function of formatting: allowing people to skip reading before they become disappointed.
The Web editor’s two biggest challenges in formatting text for scannability are (1) selecting the presentation that supports quick access and (2) selectively highlighting what’s “must-read”—what you want readers to notice, even if that’s all they notice.
Start by categorizing the material. What type of information is it? Steps for changing a tire? Instructions for registering for a conference? Driving directions to a location? If your material is essentially telling people how to perform a task, you can be sure they’re not on your site for beautiful prose. Your goal is to help readers meet their goals, get off the page, and move on to the next thing they want to do.
But what if your material consists of feature articles, professional reports, biographies, scholarly documents, or informational articles? Here you don’t have to lose the carefully crafted prose style, but give readers clear headers and subheads to help them navigate easily through the material.
For pragmatic, goal-oriented copy, think numbered points, bulleted lists, short sentences, and very short, boldface form-field and subsection locators. Your goal is to help people complete the task quickly and efficiently and get off the page and on to the next thing they want to do.
For feature articles, white papers, policy analyses, regulatory briefings, biographies, STM (scholarly, technical, and medical) documents, and many other types of fact-based information, you don’t necessarily have to lose the prose style. But you’ll need to supply clear heads and subheads to help readers navigate through greater complexity.
Then highlight the can’t-miss information. This is the text you should highlight graphically in some way. Boldface keywords to make them stand out. Tighten paragraphs to turn dense writing into easily digestible chunks. Bullet-list a string of ideas or a list of items. Remember, if you’ve bulleted or bolded something, you’re guaranteeing that the reader will look at it. So make sure these items are worth the special treatment you’re giving them.
But used with care, boldfacing will make key terms stand out. And bulleted lists of things will be instantly visible. Heads and subheads will help people recognize an orderly sequence of topics on the page. Keeping paragraphs short is also a way to highlight key information—perhaps even a single crisp, significant sentence. Try to avoid editing all paragraphs down to exactly the same brief word count, though, and giving them all a perfunctory subhead. Even on the Web, text that offers variety in paragraphing is more attractive to the reading eye.
This is almost the only control you’re ever going to have over how someone looks at your Web site! You control, with emphatic formatting, where the eye will fall first on site content. Key items will be picked up (because they’re bolded). A list of instructions or options will be instantly visible (because they’re numbered or bulleted). The hierarchy of related topics will be clear (because you added meaningful headers and subheads).
As you look at the example in the exercise, note what your eyes are doing as you scan the document. What grabs your attention? What do you read first, what are you skipping past? In this exercise, you’re practicing your skill at assessing scannability.
Demo: Formatting Text for Scanning
Below is a sample of text I’ve taken from Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. I’ve stripped out all his formatting, so you’re seeing only the text itself (not as it was published). Read it through and think about the message: A statement of opinion has been expressed and data is being used to back it up.
Unedited text: Alertbox for October 18, 1998:
Failure of Corporate Websites
On the average, the Web doesn’t work: When you think of something to do on the Web, the expected outcome is that you will fail. Some recent data to support this claim. In Jared Spool’s study of 15 large commercial sites users could only find information 42% of the time even though they were taken to the correct home page before they were given the test tasks. A study from Zona Research found that 62% of Web shoppers have given up looking for the item they wanted to buy online (and 20% had given up more than three times during a two-month period). Forrester Research audited 20 major sites, finding 51% compliance with simple Web usability principles such as “is the site organized by user goals?” and “does a search list retrievals in order of relevance?” (in other words, the average site violated half of these simple design principles)
Despite these miserable statistics, users do benefit from the Web since they spend most of their time on the good sites. But the odds are against them when they want to try something new. And the odds are against any company that wants to put up a website: in my estimate 90% of commercial websites have poor usability. The recent Forrester report is particularly interesting because it tries to identify the reasons for the many bad corporate websites as well as the impact on a company from having a bad site. Many of Forrester’s conclusions are similar to my writings in the Alertbox since 1995 and the report provides additional supportive data from large corporate Web projects.
Problem: Where’s the data? You can’t differentiate the statistics from the text very easily, as they’re all run together.
Solution: Take a look at the original online document. The statistics are bulleted out, some text is bolded, and subheads popped in. What’s the thinking behind this? When factual information is buried, and it’s statistical to boot, nobody will want to dig for it, or, if they do, the chances are upped that even motivated readers will miss the point. Presenting numbers and statistics in text is a bear, but you can compensate by setting them off as here: by using bullets, bolding the statistics, and providing enough context to allow comprehension on a quick scanning.
Edited Text: Alertbox as it appeared online
Demo: More Formatting for Easy Scanning
Look at the “Before Editing” example below. If you had to read this online, would you have an easy time figuring out what the author’s trying to tell you?
Before Editing
Poultry: Chicken and turkey. Select lean cuts. The leanest poultry choice is white meat from the breast of chicken or turkey, without the skin. Although skinless dark meat is leaner than some cuts of beef or pork, it has nearly twice the fat calories as does white meat. Many grocery stores have both ground chicken and ground turkey. But know that when choosing ground poultry it may have as much fat as ground beef has, or more, because it includes dark meat and skin. To make the leanest choice, choose ground breast meat, or look for low-fat ground chicken or turkey. Buy poultry that feels cold to the touch. Fresh poultry needs to be cold at all times to help prevent bacterial contamination. Make poultry, along with meat and fish, among the last items you put in your shopping cart before checkout. Choose poultry that looks moist and supple. Avoid poultry that has signs of drying, discoloration, blemishes or bruising. Fresh poultry has a mild scent and is free of strong odors. Don’t buy poultry past the expiration date. Some poultry packages display a “sell by” or “use before” date. A sell-by date tells stores how long the product should remain on the shelves. A use-before date is the last date you should consume the product, to guarantee the best flavor and quality. Don’t buy products past these recommended dates. Use fresh poultry within two days. Store poultry toward the back of your refrigerator, which tends to be the coldest space. Make sure no juices drip from the poultry onto other foods, particularly fresh produce, in the refrigerator. Freeze poultry in store packaging. Leave on the wrapping and add a second layer of airtight, heavy-duty plastic wrap before placing poultry in your freezer. Use frozen poultry sections within nine months and whole poultry within one year. Thaw frozen poultry in the refrigerator before use. Bacteria can grow rapidly on poultry at room temperature. Thawing poultry in the refrigerator, however, can take two or more days, depending on the size of the pieces. Defrosting poultry in the microwave is another option. If you use this method, cook the poultry immediately after defrosting or put the pieces back in the refrigerator if you’re marinating it. Also, use the “defrost” or “50-percent power” setting to thaw the poultry so that the edges don’t cook while the rest of the meat remains frozen. Avoid contaminating other foods. Use different cutting boards and separate knives when preparing raw poultry. Wash your hands and all of the utensils and surfaces—plates and cutting boards, for example—that come in contact with the raw poultry or its juices before using them with other foods. Cut off the skin and visible fat before cooking poultry. This lowers the fat content, and if you’re grilling, helps prevent flare-ups, which can char the meat and form unhealthy compounds. If you’re roasting a whole chicken or turkey, remove the skin after cooking, but before you carve and serve the meat. Cook thoroughly before eating. To see if the meat is cooked through to its center, cut into the thickest part. Any juices should run clear. The meat should show no signs of uncooked or pink flesh. If using a food thermometer, check to make sure it registers 165 F for ground poultry, 170 F for breast portions and 180 F for whole birds.
Problem: The author probably knows what the document’s about, but he decided to put it online unedited; unfortunately, all his work has pretty much gone to waste. It’s highly doubtful that anyone will take the time to figure out, piece by piece, what the writer’s talking about.
Solution: What we have to do is analyze the text, and figure out what topics are being discussed in the document. Make a list of all the main thoughts if necessary, and rearrange them in a new hierarchy, if you feel that’s necessary, in order of importance. Your goal is to make it easy for the reader to SEE the sections and subjects and scan them quickly, and you’ll do this by using formatting techniques. Should main thoughts be titled, or given subheads? How many items are being talked about here, and which ones are the most important?
Now take a look at the formatted version below. Look carefully at what’s been done to the individual blocks of text. Can you see the structure clearly now, without much effort? The main topics have been pulled out—labeled, set off in bullets, and their first lines bolded. This makes for an easy skim.
Another important point: Standardize your formatting. Once readers get used to how you’re formatting the document, they can scroll down the page, ignoring the formatting you’ve put in, and concentrating on the words. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
After Editing: Text Only
(You can see this online at mayoclinic.com/health/food-and-nutrition/NU00202/LOCID.)
POULTRY: CHICKEN AND TURKEY
Selecting
Select lean cuts. The leanest poultry choice is white meat from the breast of chicken or turkey, without the skin. Although skinless dark meat is leaner than some cuts of beef or pork, it has nearly twice the fat calories as does white meat. Many grocery stores have both ground chicken and ground turkey. But know that when choosing ground poultry it may have as much fat as ground beef has, or more, because it includes dark meat and skin. To make the leanest choice, choose ground breast meat, or look for low-fat ground chicken or turkey.
Buy poultry that feels cold to the touch. Fresh poultry needs to be cold at all times to help prevent bacterial contamination. Make poultry, along with meat and fish, among the last items you put in your shopping cart before checkout.
Choose poultry that looks moist and supple. Avoid poultry that has signs of drying, discoloration, blemishes, or bruising. Fresh poultry has a mild scent and is free of strong odors.
Don’t buy poultry past the expiration date. Some poultry packages display a “sell by” or “use before” date. A sell-by date tells stores how long the product should remain on the shelves. A use-before date is the last date you should consume the product, to guarantee the best flavor and quality. Don’t buy products past these recommended dates.
Storing
Use fresh poultry within two days. Store poultry toward the back of your refrigerator, which tends to be the coldest space. Make sure no juices drip from the poultry onto other foods, particularly fresh produce, in the refrigerator.
Freeze poultry in store packaging. Leave on the wrapping and add a second layer of airtight, heavy-duty plastic wrap before placing poultry in your freezer. Use frozen poultry sections within nine months and whole poultry within one year.
Thaw frozen poultry in the refrigerator before use. Bacteria can grow rapidly on poultry at room temperature. Thawing poultry in the refrigerator, however, can take two or more days, depending on the size of the pieces. Defrosting poultry in the microwave is another option. If you use this method, cook the poultry immediately after defrosting or put the pieces back in the refrigerator if you’re marinating it. Also, use the “defrost” or “50-percent power” setting to thaw the poultry so that the edges don’t cook while the rest of the meat remains frozen.
Cooking
Avoid contaminating other foods. Use different cutting boards and separate knives when preparing raw poultry. Wash your hands and all of the utensils and surfaces—plates and cutting boards, for example—that come in contact with the raw poultry or its juices before using them with other foods.
Cut off the skin and visible fat before cooking poultry. This lowers the fat content, and if you’re grilling, helps prevent flare-ups, which can char the meat and form unhealthy compounds. If you’re roasting a whole chicken or turkey, remove the skin after cooking, but before you carve and serve the meat.
Cook thoroughly before eating. To see if the meat is cooked through to its center, cut into the thickest part. Any juices should run clear. The meat should show no signs of uncooked or pink flesh. If using a food thermometer, check to make sure it registers 165 F for ground poultry, 170 F for breast portions and 180 F for whole birds.
There’s no room for verbal clutter online. We absorb messages better in short phrases—think billboards, headlines, pullquotes. But does that mean that all online text needs to be as much as 50 percent shorter that its original printed version? Some writers have said just that. I don’t agree. I believe that text wellformatted for quicker reading will do just well in most cases.
What you’re trying to do is write more conversationally, more the way people talk to each other face to face. This kind of writing is to the point and also more interesting to listen to. When in doubt about the writing, try reading it out loud. Does it sound like something that would actually come out of anyone’s mouth? If it doesn’t:
Look for shorter ways of phrasing overly complex statements. For example, have a tendency to can become tends to; the field of science can become science.
Kill weak, redundant phrases and substitute strong ones: perform a test can become test; do a review can become review; serves to explain can become explains.
Passive voice and smothered verbs can make for weaker sentences, so try to use action verbs: was sent a letter of explanation for the delay can become received a letter explaining the delay.
Demo: Tightening Verbose Text
Take a look at this sentence. On paper, it reads like any rather long-winded paragraph, but doesn’t give us much trouble. But put online, it becomes somewhat impenetrable, adding to its woes:
Before Editing
In spite of the fact that the educational environment is a very unique and significant facet to each and every one of our children in terms of his or her future development, some groups do not support reasonable and fair tax assessments that are required for providing an educational experience at a high level of quality.
Problem: As we scan text, overly verbose writing styles like this act as a road-block to understanding. The reader spends more time trying to figure out what on earth’s being said than paying attention to what is means.
Solution: Now look at the series of possible edits. As we cut back wordy text to only the words that matter most, we’re reducing it to its essence. In spite of the fact that becomes although. Each and every one of our children in terms of his or her future development becomes our children’s development. You get the idea. We’re trying to “re-say” the text using far fewer words, with the challenge of not losing meaning along the way. By Edit 3, the focus has also shifted. You may or may not want that, but trying different edits will help you find one that says it all.
After three possible editing passes
Edit 1. Although the educational environment is a unique and significant part of our children’s development, some groups oppose the reasonable, fair tax assessments required for a quality education.
Edit 2. Although the educational environment is a uniquely significant part of our children’s development, some groups oppose the reasonable tax assessments that provide it.
Edit 3. Some groups oppose reasonable tax assessments that can provide a high-quality education for our children.
Demo: Writing Pointers, Not Prose
Not all online text has to be written in sentence or paragraph form. Sometimes an outline—a map—built from short phrases pointing to the reader’s navigational or search options is just the ticket. Ask two questions about content to decide whether it may be better formatted that way:
Is it strictly navigational? Keep the writing brief—even telegraphic. Readers are trying to get to a specific page or kind of information. It isn’t rude to point online.
Is it strictly instructional? Keep the writing brief but completely clear and complete enough to accomplish an objective. People aren’t there for a narrative excursion—they want to know how to apply for a job or order a book.
GEICO’s homepage, geico.com/home, is short and sweet. Homeowners are presumably motivated to find specific policy-related information. Once there, they’ll settle in and read. But they don’t want to do that while they’re still in action mode, discovering all the options; the same thing we do with sample topics like these:
The things we’ve talked about in this section can pertain both to long articles as well as shorter ones. A lengthy document placed unedited online (say, as a PDF) has a double problem: It’s both physically and psychologically daunting to the reader, offering no navigation relief. It must be read one static screenful at a time.
The formatting techniques discussed can aid both the skimming and careful reading experience tremendously. For a very long document that you’re not allowed to edit in any significant way, you can at least write a brief summary statement, editorial lead, or abstract telling the reader what the document’s about: “Five ways to manage your diabetes, with detailed information for children, adults, and seniors” is a lot more informative than starting out cold with a long scroll of dense unbroken text. You’ll at least alert the reader to what the document (in all its unedited lengthiness) is about, giving them the option of printing it out for digesting later or chewing through it online.
The fours steps for editing Web content are adaptable, depending on your publishing mission and the nature of your content.
Mick Doherty, former managing editor of the Jetnet, the employee portal of American Airlines, American Eagle, and TWA, once stated the First Rule of Online Publishing this way: “For the first time in the history of the written word, authors, editors, and publishers no longer control the user-end interface.” The material in this section is excerpted from articles published in The Editorial Eye.
Since 1991, when Tim Berners-Lee first proposed a “World Wide Web project” on Usenet, the laundry list of obstacles to universal Web publishing standards has grown:
Multiple computer platforms
Competing Web browsers with multiple versions
Increase in nonstandard information interfaces (wireless handhelds, telephones)
Increased user personalization of settings and filtering of content
Increase in number of plug-ins required and available
Internet Service Provider (ISP) issues
Web publishing pioneer John December addressed many of these challenges as long ago in the November 2000 issue of The Editorial Eye. He politely stated the problem: “An online publication does not necessarily offer the uniform reading experience that paper publications can achieve.”
The sudden, sinking realization that Web publishing wrests some presentational control away from wordsmiths and managing editors has caused grave consternation (read: fear) among professional communicators throughout the Web’s first decade-plus. Three commonly held but mistaken assumptions make life harder than it has to be for writers, and these myths need correcting.
The lack of ability to uniformly control how Web content is presented to an audience has caused hiring managers to look for writers who can design (and the reverse) and has driven far too many writers to spend hours learning software programs and tweaking HTML code until it’s just...exactly...right...wait...not yet...now!
While this might sound counterintuitive, Doherty has said, “That loss of control can be incredibly empowering to wordsmiths and editors if they don’t waste hours trying to essentially change professions.”
Only one visual element of an online presentation can be predetermined: the words. As online copywriting guru Nick Usborne has put it, “Words don’t care which browser your [readers] use.”
Of course, the text and images of any message, in any medium, should be complementary. But on the Web, where the interface your readers will see is simply a best guess, the words must also be strong enough to stand alone to deliver the message independently of design—a mandate that does not apply to print.
If the graphics team you work with “gets it,” they’ll understand that concept. And if they don’t, ask them to log on to the site with you and then point out to them that while their typically excellent and engaging graphics are loading, it’s quite likely that visitors to the site will begin reading the text without them, as text inevitably loads first.
Put more forcefully, designers live by the axiom that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So remind them that the typical download process guarantees that in the beginning, the first impression is based entirely on the words. Ergo, text—language—matters online.
Let’s imagine that you’re publishing to a specific, predefined audience—for instance, an employee intranet using company-issued PCs with preloaded browsers inside a firewall on a high-speed connection—and that you’re confident about the accuracy of the Photoshop blueline (yep, it’s still called that in some shops) the design group develops. But what if that’s the day the CEO buys a wireless handheld and tries to load today’s headlines from an RSS feed? What’s the primary information currency of the PDA? Words. That’s a lesson not just for writers but for everyone evaluating the importance of good writing online.
The popular concept of a homogeneous audience known as “Web readers” is as patently ridiculous as lumping together all “book readers.” Unfortunately, this misconception was compounded by early Web publishers, who not only discussed the tendencies of “all Web readers” but also stressed that online publishing was available to “all Web readers.”
Books have always been available to anyone who wanted them, in libraries and bookstores, but no reasonable author ever studied “the tendencies of book readers” to learn how to make a work in progress appealing to “anyone” with “book access.”
No, the concept of targeting a specific audience has always been the driving force behind professional writing, and concerns about the visual limitations of a medium should not overshadow the importance of the message. Nothing about the Web changes the fact that writers need to write to the audience they want to reach. In fact, it’s more important than ever.
What’s the reason that writing for a predefined audience is more important? “All Web readers” do have one thing in common: They are, to use the parlance of human-computer interaction (HCI) professionals, also users. This redefinition of readers as users represents a very real shift in boundaries between publishers and audience.
Karen McGrane, senior director of information architecture with Razorfish, has described this sea change: “When writing is published to the Web, the reader’s activity becomes interactivity. Awareness that the reader of a document on the Web is also the user of a computer system should make writers more aware of the...activities that users must engage in to meet their goals.”
Interactivity between writers and readers isn’t new, of course. However, the immediacy of the interaction and the ability of the reader to alter the presentation of the message—and, increasingly, to participate in writing and editing the message—furthers the original point: The one part of a Web site that “users” can’t alter is the words.
That’s why carefully defining the intended audience for online copy is even more important than it has always been in print.
Widely acknowledged usability expert Jakob Nielsen caused significant trouble for copywriters everywhere when he announced that on the Web, authors should “write no more than 50 percent of the text you would have used in a hardcopy publication.” Of course, that’s preposterous. If a writer can cut the message by half without affecting the content, the copy was too long in the first place.
The answer isn’t to divide the Web version into shorter paragraphs and fewer pages; Nielsen himself consistently argues that a certain percentage of readers are lost with each added click deeper into a site’s structure. And yet the litany of “rules for good Web writing” persists: Use lots of bulleted lists and subheads. Keep it short. Take advantage of the ability to link. Keep it short. Write using the “inverted pyramid” of newspaper style. Keep it short. Make sure the writing integrates with the site design. Did we mention that you should keep it short?
Publications have style guides. The Web is not a publication but a media outlet for every conceivable type of publication. Therefore, the Web has room for—and in fact requires—many different types of style guides. Many types of writers.
There’s nothing magic about “writing short” if the topic warrants more depth or if the presentation is better as one longer, scrolling page rather than several interlinked nodes. Your audience’s expectations, preferences, and experience should be the driving force in any decision about online copy presentation.
Technology allows you to gather once unimaginably precise demographics about who is reading your online publication, but that same technology has taken away the security blanket of fixed format. Breathe deeply and remember these Web writing guidelines:
You can’t control how the publication will actually look to your readers, but you can control the quality of the written content, which is what they see first.
You need to recognize your audience as “users” with the ability to individually change the look and feel of what they are reading; this allows you to focus on them as “readers.”
You can stop trying to follow a monolithic “Web style,” much less trying to write for a single, all-encompassing “Web audience,” and develop a style that fits the needs and expectations of your specific audience.
The main ideas here apply to all electronic interfaces, including e-mail. The proliferation of widely varying e-mail clients, the increasing popularity of Web-based e-mail, and ongoing arguments regarding the virtues of HTML e-mail versus text-only e-mail all spring from the same seed: Final interface control belongs to the user.
In the end, this technology-enabled shift in control over the publication medium leads back to and reinforces the oldest of all writing maxims: Know your audience. Write to that specific audience in ways they will recognize and appreciate, whether or not those ways fit within anybody’s prescriptive “best practices” for Web writing. It’s no longer possible to know what your audience will see, so you’d better nail what they’re going to read.
As increasing numbers of print periodicals launch online editions, and as ever more Web sites clamor for original content, editors and designers are encountering a challenging new issue—how to make sure Web content is accessible to people with disabilities.
Nearly 20 percent of the population has some disability—visual, auditory, physical, cognitive, or neurological—that requires them to seek assistance when trying to use online information. Initiatives to better serve this significant portion of the population are being actively pursued by public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization dedicated to establishing universal Web accessibility through cooperative standards, typical site designs are littered with obstacles like these for disabled users:
Uncaptioned graphics, video, and audio
Poorly marked-up tables or frames
Lack of keyboard options
Incompatibility with screen-reading programs
Lack of visual signposts in text
Overly complex presentation or language
Flickering or strobing visual elements
To remove these and other barriers to access, the W3C (w3.org) has developed guidelines that have become models for governments and organizations worldwide. They are collectively called the Web Accessibility Initiative and cover Web technologies and protocols, software, and Web content.
Of special interest to editors and designers are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (w3.org/TR/WCAG20). The model for ground-breaking legislation in the United States, these guidelines have become the de facto industry standard.
Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act, issued in December 2000, requires federal agencies to ensure that all electronic and information technology developed or installed after June 21, 2001, is accessible to disabled employees and private citizens. This applies to software packages, databases, photocopiers, telephones, even desktop and laptop computers—and agency Web sites.
Among other things, Section 508 requires that Web pages incorporate text equivalents for nontext items, identifiers for table elements, and alternatives to multimedia presentations. The regulations also provide guidance on style sheets, image maps, scripts, and forms. With few exceptions, the language of Section 508 hews closely to that of the W3C guidelines. “When possible, we tried to adopt their concept if not their language,” says Doug Wakefield, the Section 508 point man for the Access Board, the independent federal agency responsible for drafting the regulation. But there is an important difference between the two. “The W3C recommendations were written as guidelines,” says Wakefield. “Ours are enforceable standards.”
What about the effort required to make Web sites compliant? “The implications are not as stark as they may seem,” he says. Existing pages can be left as they are unless their content is modified after Section 508 takes effect. Wakefield cites a recent study estimating that federal agencies operate approximately 20,000 Web sites totaling 35 million Web pages. “You can’t realistically expect all these pages to be made compliant, any more than you could order the Empire State Building to be rebuilt with accessibility features.”
Nevertheless, webmasters are concerned that even the task of creating new pages according to the Section 508 standard will be inordinately labor-intensive. Not all Web-based authoring software has options for incorporating accessibility, although some software can validate that Web site code meets WAI standards.
“Those of us on the front lines who are churning out pages daily, we want to do this,” says Mary Jo Lazun, a webmaster for the Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service. “But our vast amount of tabular financial data presents problems.” Comprehending this type of information and its correlations is tightly tied to a visual presentation: Data in a fixed format such as a table can’t be easily “read” independently of that format by alternative means.
Many federal webmasters face similar difficulties in presenting the complex information produced by their agencies in a format that’s easy to use. Regarding her own site’s preparedness, Lazun says, “Right now we are as compliant as possible within the constraints of software and manpower. We may just have to wait until our tools get better.”
It appears that webmasters like Lazun will not have to wait long. Mike Paciello, founder and chief technology officer of WebAble, Inc., a provider of accessibility technologies and services, believes the computer industry is taking accessibility into serious consideration. Paciello, who helped draft both the W3C guidelines and the federal regulations, says, “Once people are made aware of the need, the issues, and the strategies for solutions, they almost always respond.” Assistive technologies, it is predicted, will flourish when the industry agrees on consistent standards.
And the benefits of assistive technologies extend beyond the disability community. The same features that allow Web pages to be accessible to screen readers and Braille-output-devices also enable them to be displayed on personal data assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, Internet kiosks, and WebTV.
Adobe offers a PDF version that incorporates accessibility features such as support for screen readers, more highly contrasting colors, and keyboard shortcuts. A tagging feature allows screen-reading software to interpret formatting features such as columns, tables, and hyperlinks.
To incorporate this capability, called multimodality, Web editors should examine a page the way a person with a disability would. Pretend you don’t see, don’t hear, and can’t move. Determine whether a graphic can be rendered in speech. With streaming media, turn down the volume, and think about what it would mean to a person who is deaf. Think about how a person with no arms would interact with it. Over time, the things that ensure accessibility will come naturally.
One of the hardest things for designers to overcome is the temptation to fixate on how it looks. But if designers will use structural tags rather than formatting tags, most screen readers can better “hear” the former. In style sheets, instead of defining fixed measurements, set adjustable proportions such as percentages that can be redefined as need be by users. Writing with accessibility in mind makes a much more usable site for everyone.
Productivity and comfort matter as much as simple accessibility to basic information. Thus, the definition of disability is being broadened to include functional disability. Web editors have to take into account people who are “disabled” by multitasking—doing more than one task at a time with incomplete focus on either. Global positioning systems are an example of information rendered multimodal; graphic map information has become voice-activated text.
One of the farthest-reaching potential effects of this shift is the tendency to define the Web as a public accommodation, like a bookstore or a movie theater. If the Web is in fact designated a public service—as the government is being urged by some to do—it will fall under the purview of that other landmark piece of disability legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Advocates such as the American Foundation for the Blind have given congressional testimony that that ADA should apply to the Web. A landmark 1996 opinion letter issued by the Department of Justice stated that Web sites of organizations covered by ADA should be subject to the Act’s accessibility requirements. The issue is contentious but remains untested.
The community of Web users is growing in both number and diversity and challenging online publishing standards. Content guidelines and assistive technologies developed for people with disabilities allow Web site content to reach a wider audience, but Web editors and designers have to reconsider the traditional relationship between content and presentation. Whether enforced voluntarily or through legislation, the universally accessible Web is coming.