by Jonathan Price and Lisa Price; Published by New Riders
I have just read a copy of this book online via the O'Reilly/Safari subscription scheme. I read it in only a few days. Reading online is still much more difficult that reading printed paper output, and this was not a small book - it's 528 pages long. So the fact that I was able to get through this online in the time says something pretty strong about practicing what you preach!
There were a lot of good hints on making web writing shorter, punchier, and to the point. I'd never thought much about the punctuation this - for example, coons are harder to see so use dashes instead, or leave them out in words like "email". It convinced me.
Lots of the general editing stuff was old news - active voice, use lists, etc, but it was well presented with many examples.
In particular I liked the section on "headings". It was part of the major section on using links - reusing headings as menus, link items etc., makes sense. I can see a place for run-in headings as well as better use of sub headings.
In fact, the 6 ideas for better writing are all worth a read, and could be made into an editing refresher. The ideas are: #1 shorter text, #2 scannable, #3 hot links, #4 paragraphs, #5 reduce cognitive burdens, and #6 meaningful menus.
An theme from this book that was a new, clear idea for me was the early description of information as objects. Using the language of object orientation was an excellent way of explaining chunking and categorising, and tagging and re-use. I'd like to read more about information architecture, and I think an OO attitude to content and information has possibilities.
Also covered well were the genre types. I am interested in online help, but seeing discussions of the broad range of writing, including news items, press releases, niche articles, etc made for useful comparisons.
There was more emphasis on attracting visitors to a website and keeping them than you might expect for an understanding of online help, but there were many ideas in common. In particular the approach to shorter, simpler text. You still don't want people leaving your writing because the help is not good, does not have what they want, or is hard to find.
Further work for me:
- Establish a style sheet.
- Determine the topic types that are needed and create patterns.
- Establish an editing strategy and workflow.
- Come up with technical ways to implement patterns - master pages, javascript for browse sequences, etc.
- This about "audience fit".
- Meta data.
- FAQs and can they be automated.
