Usability Week 2009 – Day 2

Writing for the Web 2

 

I crawled out of bed still full from last night and ready for a second day of Writing for the Web.  Yesterday was very informative and today we were promised more in-depth information about writing for different audiences.

 

Writing for the Web 2 was presented by Hoa Loranger and Janelle Estes.  I was disappointed Chris wouldn’t be back, but he was teaching a different session.  I sat between Paul, who I had met the day before in the lunchtime focus group from Ottawa, and Patrick, a French Canadian from Quebec (that’s right, so far everyone I’ve been has been from Canada).  Patrick and I later met up with Robyn and some new friends for lunch.

 

Hoa started the session with statistics on Usability, based on the studies completed by NN/g.  Every aspect of a site is quickly taken in by the user, who determines if the site is trustworthy or not.  High marks were received by Level of Detail, Layout, Visual Design, Branding and Writing Style.  Reasons people find web sites hard to use are Findability (unable to find what they need because of bad navigation, organization and links), Page Design, Content and Search. 

 

Writing for your Target Audience focused on decided who they are, what they care about, and how your web site wants to communicate with them.  Bottom line: your site should benefit the user, so you better get to know your user.  You can do this through usability testing, such as surveys and focus groups.  Use this data to anticipate how users will use your site and anticipate their questions.

 

Another point that was emphasized from yesterday: people don’t read web sites.  Save yourself the time and cut the fluff from the site.  What may work in print simply doesn’t work on a screen.

 

Structuring content is really important.  Homepages should be updated often and be easy to understand – most users spend between 25 and 30 seconds.  Welcome them quickly (10 to 20 words) and get to the point! Who are you, what do you do?  This is so important, but so many companies forget.  Unless you’re Pepsi or Nike, people don’t already know who you are.  This is your chance to tell them.

 

Other key points: minimize scrolling, keep the information relevant, include links, and explain jargon.  Also users have developed “banner blindness” and will ignore anything that resembles an ad.  Don’t put important content in this format or users won’t be able to find it.

 

Hoa and Janelle took turns, each teaching a portion of the session between breaks.  By lunchtime I was feeling a bit disappointed.  I was hoping for very specific information, similar to what was presented yesterday, but instead we received very general information, most of it more about content than writing.  They briefly covered Corporate Areas (About Us, Bios, etc.) areas, FAQ’s, Product Descriptions and Web 2.0. 

 

The most interesting parts were the usability videos.  They showed a user navigating a task while they talked through their thought process.  The web site was large on the screen with the user in a small screen on the bottom right.  Seeing a user become frustrated and give up is really powerful. 

 

Next we learned about Special Audiences: Kids, Teens, Seniors, Blind or Visually Impaired, English as a Second Language and Low Literacy Users.  The videos of someone using a screen reader was very interesting and brought home the point of how important it is to make a site accessible.  Teens emphasized that they read all day long in school and want to read as little as possible online.  The senior citizen we saw had a hard time with the language used on a site where he was looking for a bundled phone service.  He didn’t understand what “bundled” was and was trying to find a “package.”

 

Overall I was disappointed with this session.  The instructors were OK – Hoa was good but Janelle seemed a little… off.  I did enjoy the statistics and the usability videos, but the day was more general than WFTW1, when I was expecting more specifics.  I wasn’t alone in this as everyone I talked to agreed.  Hopefully they’ll make the session more informative for the rest of the series (they’ll be in New York, San Francisco, London and Sydney over the next few months).

 

So, I was 50/50 for sessions and hoping the next day would be more informative.  I headed for the networking social and met up with Robyn and some new people.  We had a great time talking about social media and its applications.  I left after about an hour to meet up with some old high school friends at Murphy’s of D.C., right near my hotel.  I caught up with Jim and Brian, and after dinner Brian took me on a walking tour of Dupont Circle, which I would have never experienced on my own.  We hit a great little Mexican shop where we got amazing empanadas.  It was a great end to the day.