OU Campus Training

Writing for the Web

Always Consider Your Audience!

Keep it Simple and Think Mobile First! What content would you create if you were designing for a smart phone?

Remember, the new Foothill website is responsive for different device sizes and orientation (portrait or landscape).

Check out your website on these different devices:

• Desktop
• Laptop
• Tablet
• Phone

Google Writing for the Web and you will find a lot of websites with tips.

Here are some that I would recommend.

• http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/
• http://www.webwritingthatworks.com/

Articles of special interest

• Lower-Literacy Users: Writing for a Broad Consumer Audience, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, March 14, 2005

Foothill College Style Guide

• Phone numbers: Use periods between the numbers. Example: 650.864.5400
• Email: Use the full email address. EXAMPLE: Email creamerbradley@fhda.edu and smithvanessa@fhda.edu.
• Dates: Jan. 12, 2013 (abbreviate months except for March, April, May, June and July) and spell out full month if only year - January 2013.
• Times: Use periods with a.m. or p.m. (not AM or PM)

Best Practices

Main Content Area Set Up

• Ask: Who is the audience?
• Is your page formatted in a way that is easy to read for key concepts, using short paragraphs, bullet points and subheadings?
• Did you stay with the default settings for your main content paragraphs? – Black text on white is easiest to read.
• Do you link to other pages within your Web site whenever appropriate?
• Should you create a new separate page for a particular concept/section on a page?
• Use images to highlight the information.
• Provide information signs

Creating Links

• Create link labels that reflect the page being linked to