Reading online is very different from reading print. According to research studies, people read 25% slower from computer screens than reading from paper ⁽¹⁾. That's when they read at all: many people typically scan online text, searching keywords, headlines and captions ⁽²⁾. An eyetracking study cosponsored by Stanford University and the Poynter Institute illustrates how online readers are drawn to more brief abstracts, and even when reading "full" articles tend to cover no more than 75% of the material - reading "shallow but wide" ⁽³⁾.

Therefore, writing for the web needs to be customized for online readers to be most effective. Good web writing is short, concise, and employs a variety of "landmarks" to highlight key ideas. Here are a few web writing basics.

Keep it short.
Online readers are impatient, so be succinct: use 50% less text than you would use in print, maybe 500 words per page maximum. Try to keep most if not all of your text "above the fold" on each page to reduce the need to scroll. Retain plenty of white space around your text. ⁽⁵⁾

Group related information.
For longer documents, clump the information into self-sufficient segments and link by topic, chronologically, by audience, or however makes the most sense to your readers. ⁽⁵⁾

Make text short without sacrificing depth of content by splitting the information up into multiple nodes connected by hypertext links. Long and detailed background information can be relegated to secondary pages; similarly, information of interest to a minority of readers can be made available through a link without penalizing those readers who don't want it. ⁽⁵⁾

Keep it fresh.
Inaccurate or outdated information reduces the credibility of the entire site ⁽⁴⁾. If you don't plan to update often, avoid time-dated language, like "later this year" or "last semester" (use "academic year 2004-05" or "spring 2002 semester" instead). Flag time-sensitive material to remember to remove once it's outdated.

Make it 'scannable'
Because online readers tend to scan, simple and direct headlines and subheads can help people find what they want quickly. Use up to three levels of heads, and note that descriptive heads with verbs convey the most information.⁽⁵⁾

• Keep it short
• Clump information and link
• Keep it fresh
• Use plenty of graphic landmarks

Use "inverted pyramid" style.
Start with the most important information, followed by short supplementary information. Stick to one main idea per paragraph, and keep sentences and paragraphs short. Edit ruthlessly.⁽⁶⁾

Resources
These sites offer relevant research and guidelines for web writing and usability.
useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website
Web Style Guide, 2nd edition
Good Documents: Techniques

Good examples
These pages offer good examples of how to present text on the web.
Mayo Medical School
The US News & World Report annual school survey online is an easy way to call up the web sites of other medical schools to see how they present similar information.
US News & World Report

Footnotes

1. Jakob Nielsen, 1997, Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)
2. Jakob Nielsen, 1997, How Users Read on the Web
3. Stanford-Poynter study, 2000
4. Stanford web credibility project
5. Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)
6. Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace

Prepared for the 3/10/03 webworker meeting by Kap Stann - revised 9/13/04