I think the 5 Es can also be helpful for understanding content usability. And given the state of content on many websites, we can do with a little more understanding! So here’s my version of the 5 Es applied to content.

Effective

Effective content is:

• Relevant. It meets users information needs, answers their questions, helps them complete their tasks or meet their goals.  It is not fluff, happy talk, welcome messages or things people already know or don’t care about.
• Complete. There are no gaps or pieces missing. Users can get what they need from it.
• Clear and unambiguous. The message is communicated effectively. No risks are taken by trying to be cute or clever.
• Accurate and up-to-date.

Efficient

Efficient content is:

• Fast to find via navigation or search.
• Easy to read. It uses common, everyday words. It does not force users to look up dictionaries or glossaries or memorise acronyms or abbreviations. It uses short sentences. It avoids passive voice, weak verbs and double negatives.
• Concise.  It has been reviewed and edited, and non-essential words removed.
• Structured well. The important or most frequently used information is at the top. Related information is grouped together. It has a logical sequence.
• Designed for scan-reading. Headings, lists, tables and graphics make it easy for users to see what they’re looking for.

Engaging

Engaging content is:

• Presented well on screen. It looks clean and uncluttered rather than busy and dense.
• Neither too formal, nor too informal.
• Not afraid to use personal pronouns. It speaks to ‘you’ rather than ‘customers’, and it  is from ‘us’ rather than ‘the Department of Some Excruitiatingly Long Name’.

Error tolerant

Error tolerant content is:

• Clear and unambiguous. The content is unlikely to be misundertood by users.
• Accurate and up-to-date.

Easy to learn

Easy to learn content is:

• Written using familiar terms. Users do not have to struggle with jargon or words they are unfamiliar with.
• Structured and presented to aid comprehension.
• Supported by examples, images or illustrations where needed.

One of the key issues is that so much of what gets published online is unnecessarily wordy. There are two problem areas  — wordy writing and content that isn’t of any real value, such as:

• Welcome messages — as though someone will be offended if we don’t welcome them every time they come to our website
• Instructions that don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know — ‘click on the links below to find the information you want’
• Introductions that state the obvious or repeat information that appears further down the page
• Background that people already know or don’t care much about.

An article in the current edition of The Atlantic suggests that people have moved to using online newspapers because the print versions are unnecessarily long. It includes some great examples. Although the analysis relates to journalism, there are lessons here for web writers too.

See: Cut this story, by Michael Kinsley

Lack of knowledge around content production and accessibility

In my experience:

• many web writers have little understanding of web accessibility
• some have heard of ‘alt tags’ but few know how to write them or what they are for
• organisations are not aware of the impact writers and publishers can have on accessibility
• web writers rarely get training in web accessibility.

Content management systems do not prevent accessibility problems

Even within a tightly controlled environment such as a content management system, writers can affect compliance with the new guidelines. There are 19 WCAG 2.0  ’success criteria’ that a site may fail if those who write the content are not trained in accessibility.

Make a resolution to address this issue in 2010

Do your organisation, writers and users a favour. Make a new year’s resolution to address this issue.  To help you get started, I’ve attached a presentation I gave on this topic at the OZeWAI conference in Melbourne a few weeks ago.  Let me know if you have any queries.  In the meantime …

Happy New Year!

The words we use in page titles play a key role in search engine optimisation. Most search engines give them more weight than words elsewhere on the page. And given scan-reading behaviour, well-written page titles are more likely to be noticed by web users in a page of search results.

The trouble with page titles is that we don’t give them enough attention.

When WYSIWYG editors ruled, page titles were invisible

When WYSIWYG editors were the most popular publishing tools, many people didn’t even realise they had to write a page title. The title edit field was rarely displayed in the content editing area. Out of sight meant out of mind, and loads of web pages never got a title.

Google’s timeline option shows the problem increasing from the mid-90’s and easing after 2006.

Google timeline results for 'untitled document'

Content management systems help, but only a little

Content management systems help address this problem because they can write the page title for us. However they can introduce a new set of problems.

Many systems are set up to take the main heading (the H1) and use that as the page title. This is better than ‘untitled document’, but only just. Using only the main heading of the page, such as ‘contact us’, will not provide enough context in search results. Who is ‘us’ when users see a whole page of similar search results on Google?

Many pages may have the same page title, such as 'Contact us'

Some systems add the organisation name to the main heading. This gives some context, but for large organisations there may still be several  ‘contact us’ or ‘about us’ pages in search results: one for each business unit.

And that’s not the only problem with this approach.  The image below shows a page from the State Library of Western Australia. The page title — ‘Australia: State library of Western Australia’ — has been created by adding the organisation name to the main heading.

The page is about Australian family history resources, but that’s not at all obvious from the page title.

Australian family history resources, State Library of Western Australia

Content management systems can help writers by adding some text to the title field to get started with. But they should always allow the writer to edit it.

And now we’re overrun by untitled PDF, Word and Powerpoint documents

While the number of untitled web pages has dropped, the problem of untitled or poorly titled documents continues with PDF, Word and Powerpoint files.

Again, a key problem is that the title field is not visible when writers produce the content. However many writers are also unaware that the title will be used as the link text in search results, and that it is important for search engine optimisation.

Untitled Powerpoint slides in Google search results

Pay more attention to page titles

To fix this problem, we need to pay more attention to page titles.

Web writers need to understand their role and how to write them well — for all the documents they publish online, not just web pages. And website managers need to check how their content management system handles the creation of page titles. It’s OK to start with the main heading and organisation name, but it’s important to ensure that writers can edit this text.

Yesterday, a participant in my workshop said she felt there was no point planning content for a web page. In her experience, content approvers made so many changes to the content, that it barely resembled the original draft. She felt any work she did to plan a page would just be wasted.

Fair point, but is this a good practice?  At the very least, it wastes her time. It probably also wastes the time of content approvers. And who knows if this kind of process leads to useful, usable content for their customers?  I doubt that it does.

Involve content approvers in planning

One solution is to involve content approvers in the planning process.  Before drafting anything at all, sit down and talk with them about their expectations.

Some issues you could discuss are:

• Why has this new content been requested? What business objective will the content help the organisation meet?
• Who is the target audience for the content? What  will they want from it?
• What should the focus of the page be? What is the key message?
• How does this page relate to other content on the site? How does it relate to other communication channels?

Get content approvers to check an outline

Before you write a draft, prepare an outline of the content. You could draft some of the main headings and jot down the key points to be covered. Get the content approver to check this before you go any further.

If you have approvers who are reluctant to give you their time, do this second step first.  When talking to them about your outline, you can explore their views of the business objectives and audience needs for the content.

Planning is worth it

Some sort of discussion like this — it doesn’t have to be very formal — should always happen before new content is written. You shouldn’t start drafting until you’ve got all the information you need.

A little planning is likely to save time, and produce better results.

As a web content specialist, I found the new guidelines disappointing. Content is the reason people use websites, but these guidelines do little to foster quality content. In fact, they do less than in version 1.0.

Writing readable content is now optional

In version 1.0, writers were urged to Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site’s content. As a ‘priority 1′ requirement, this was mandatory.

Version 2.0 says: When text requires reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level after removal of proper names and titles, supplemental content, or a version that does not require reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level, is available.

While this is more specific, and more easily measured, it is now at the lowest priority level (known as level AAA). Level AAA guidelines are not recommended … as a general policy for entire sites.  In effect, this makes it optional to write readable content!

Organising content with headings is also optional

Version 2.0 of the guidelines say Section headings are used to organise the content. In version 1.0, using headings was a medium priority—a ’should do’. In the new guidelines it has been moved to the lowest level. Using headings is now optional.

It’s also OK to write poor link text

The first version of the guidelines said Clearly identify the target of each link. This was a  ’should do’.

There are now two guidelines for links. The stronger one that requires clear link text  is at level AAA.  The weaker one, allowing links such as ‘read more’ (and on my reading, ‘click here’) is at level A. Again, the new guidelines seem to lower the standard for good writing.

Workarounds aren’t great solutions

The new guidelines tell writers to define … words or phrases used in an unusual or restricted way, including idioms and jargon. But this is just a workaround. Let’s look at an example.

An old page from the Westpac website (shown below, with full text on the Internet Archive) is full of idioms.

Screen capture of a Westpac bank web page

Researchers in Italy recently tested this kind of language on a group of students. They found that the students took longer to understand idioms than literal language. Cutting back on them, rather than adding definitions, will benefit everyone.

Ah, but I forgot to mention this guideline is only a suggestion. At level AAA, it’s optional. So you won’t need to fix the problem at all if you don’t want to.

Writers need to aim higher

To produce good, accessible content, writers will need to do more than the new guidelines suggest. If content is to be king again, we’ll all have to aim higher.

References

• Figures of speech — understanding idioms requires both sides of the brain (eScience News)
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0
• Full text of Westpac sample page (Internet Archive)

Too much content gets published online because it can, rather than because it should. Many websites heave and groan under the weight of too much low (or no) value content. Sadly, their users do too.

Decentralised control can mean no control at all

Most of my clients are large organisations, many in the public sector. There is rarely any centralised control over publishing.  Website managers or editors are often in a low-ranking, undervalued positions with no real authority. There’s rarely a policy or strategy that gives them the teeth to stop low-value, poor quality content being published.

Business area managers often make the call about what goes online. They have varying levels of understanding of what’s valuable or needed content and what’s already out there on the site.

Lower costs lower the barriers

When there is no upfront cost to publish online content, poor decisions can be made:

• ‘We have it, so we may as well put it online’
• ‘Someone might find it useful’
• ‘Our part of the site looks a bit bare—we need to fill it up’
• ‘It is policy to publish everything we produce in print on the website’
• ‘I want’ … (not ‘users want’ or ‘we need’)

You’re unlikely hear someone use this kind of rationale for publishing print content. Brochures don’t get produced just because they can. When there is a cost, people think more carefully before they publish.

Publishing on the web involves hidden costs

Publishing online is not cost-free. It takes time for staff to prepare and publish content (even if they just ‘PDF it and put it online’). Then there is time in editing, reviewing and approval.

Once published, content has to be maintained.  All too often, more content gets published than there are resources to manage it. It doesn’t take long to end up with a very out-of-date website.

The cost to user experience

The biggest cost can be to the user experience.  More content means a more complex information architecture: more main navigation choices, more links to work through and more search results to choose from.

If your publishing decisions are unrestrained, users may find too much low value, poorly focused, poor quality content.  If you publish more than you can manage, they’ll  find out of date and inaccurate content as well.

The bottom line for all this is loss of trust or damage to your organisation’s reputation. For some, it may mean loss of business. For others, may mean an increase in call centre costs as users give up trying to find what they need on your website and make a more direct enquiry.

And all of this costs money—even though it does not appear as a line item in your publishing budget.

Not enough planning

The first problem I usually notice is poorly focused content. Some pages ramble, seemingly covering every aspect, every detail that a user would (n)ever want. Others repeat information that is published elsewhere on the site.  In some cases, I’m left scratching my head about what information need the content was trying to fill. Clearly, the author has not done enough planning.

Understanding the purpose for the page

A key problem is that the purpose of the content has not been given enough thought.  If you cannot clearly identify what the content is for, it is very easy to ramble and lose focus. Poor structure is also a symptom of not having a clear enough idea of the page purpose.

In my writing workshops, participants always tell me that a key part of planning content is knowing the page purpose. But when I ask them how they work this out, often they can’t say.

Review and refine the page purpose

One of my current clients uses templates to guide content development. The planning document has a section asking the content owner to state the purpose of the page. I’ve sometimes found this part of the documentation has been left blank.  Often, it is very vague and doesn’t provide enough information to guide my editorial decisions.

Working with the client’s staff, we’ve found the need to review or refine the purpose as the content drafting (or in my case, reviewing) progresses. It seems it’s not easy to get it right up front. For key pages, or pages where the purpose is hard to articulate, it may be necessary to do this refinement.

Questions to help you uncover the purpose of the content

These questions might  help you get closer to identifying the purpose of the content. Think about these along with considerations about your audience.

• Why are you publishing this content? What does it have to achieve? What information need does it address? What content gap does it fill?
• What will users be wanting to know or do after they have read this content? What do you want them to know/do?
• Are you creating the content in response to customer feedback? What have customers been asking for or telling you? If it is an existing page, what feedback have you been getting about this page?
• Is there more than one purpose that this content will address? If so, what is the main purpose? What are secondary or less important purposes? Where should the focus or emphasis be?
• Is there content similar to this on the site? If so, what does this content need to do that the related content does not do? Should you avoid repetition or overlap?
• Is content similar to this published somewhere else (in a brochure, for instance)? Is it referred to somewhere else (on a TV ad, perhaps)? How will the online content relate to the content published or referred to elsewhere?

Other things you can do

• Brainstorm content planning with your colleagues
• Talk to people who have direct contact with your customers
• Gather customer feedback—from your call centre,  your email enquiry office, other sources
• Talk to your web team to see if you can get reports on search queries that may be relevant to this content.

They litter newspaper headlines and articles:

‘BHP to undertake study of rockfall mine’

‘Optus to undertake major network upgrade’

I hear them on the evening news program almost every night:

‘[some football player] will undergo tests to see if he has a stress fracture … ‘

‘[some poor victim of crime] will undergo surgery … ‘

And of course, they’re never far from a politician’s lips:

‘There are an enormous number of functions which ministers undertake, and which I undertake, which people don’t pay to attend.’

Government websites are crawling with them:

‘It is a requirement under s. 36 of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 that organisations undertake or arrange an assessment of an injured worker’s capability to undertake a rehabilitation program.’

‘b. agree to undergo a security clearance and civil records check;
c. undergo an enlistment medical and be classified Class One;
d. undergo psychological testing/assessment;
e. undergo Recruiting Officer (RO) assessment;’

And our university websites wouldn’t want to be left out:

‘Many high-achieving students elect to undertake a research degree … ‘

‘The Menzies Building is about to undergo a dramatic facelift’

What’s wrong with ordinary words?

Why can’t people, organisations or politicians ‘do’,  ‘have’ or ‘go to’ things rather than ‘undertake’ or ‘undergo’ them?

What’s wrong with ordinary words?  Do they lack the syllables needed to make their writers or speakers feel smart?

Why can’t  ‘BHP study rockfall mine’? What’s wrong with ‘Optus upgrades network’? Footballers and victims of crime can still ‘have’ tests or surgery, and politicians could ‘go to’ functions – as long as it’s not on my taxpaying dollar.

High achieving students could ’study’ or ‘enrol in a research degree’, and the Menzies building could ‘have a dramatic facelift’ – it certainly needs one!

Why do we have to undergo such crusty writing?  I want an undertaking that only undertakers use the word.  The rest of us should just write in plain language, surely?

He recommends:

• Iteration – you’re unlikely to get the best outcome without a few edits
• Start with information-carrying words – scan readers often only look at the first 11 characters
• Highlight key terms – for tweets you can use CAPITALS, but this isn’t a good idea for web pages
• Using short, punchy expressions – but don’t try to be cute!

For businesses using Twitter to spread the word about products, services, events and so on, the advice is invaluable.

See: Twitter postings: iterative design