Portfolio Design: Writing for the Web
Back to Portfolio Phase 3 | Back to Portfolio Rubric
Writing for an online page is not quite the same as writing an academic paper. For one thing, most users scan pages instead of reading them word by word. The shorter and clearer your writing, the happier users will be.
Page Layout
- Use lists and short paragraphs instead of longer academic-style paragraphs. Users tend to read less on a screen than on paper.
- Use Headers (e.g. H1,H2) to define sections of longer pages. Notice how different types of tips are broken into categories on this page.
- Include a summary or table of contents at the top of longer pages.
- Feel free to highlight important key words with bold face.
Writing Style
- Aim for conciseness and a writing style aimed at an educated adult (but not a specialist). Most purely academic material on the Web is in PDF format so it can be easily printed.
- As with all writing, aim for a balance of providing enough information to the user so that they can understand your page.
- When creating links, make sure text of the link describes the location of the new page. Avoid generic "Click Here" links.
- Use standard English written grammar.
- Spell check!