-A simple explanation of web and Internet terminology -

When investigating or using web services there's usually a lot of technical language. For those wishing to learn more,  we have provided a quick overview of commonly used terms and their definition. We hope you find this list helpfull.

Technical words explained in non-technical terms:

Bandwidth:
The greater the bandwidth the more information that can be transferred at one time. It’s a bit like your garden hose – the fatter the hose the more water can flow through it at any one time. The term bandwidth also broadly includes throughput, meaning the amount of information sent.

Broadband:
More and more people are getting broadband. In a nutshell it’s like getting a large hose pipe (see bandwidth). It makes using the Internet much faster than with a standard dial up modem. For example, downloading a document (such as a Word file) from the Internet may take 2 minutes on a normal dialup modem but only 12 seconds on a broadband connection. Dialup modems normally use your phone line, preventing voice calls whenever you are on the Internet, whereas broadband connections allow you to use your phone simultaneously.

Browser:
Software for viewing web pages. Browsers (or Internet Browsers) are often free, either to download or from CDs. The most popular browser is made by Microsoft and called Internet Explorer. If you have a PC it will already be on your computer.

Cyberspace:
A term coined by novelist William Gibson to refer to a near-future computer network where users mentally travel through matrices of information. The term is now used to describe the Internet and other computer networks.

Dial up Modem:
Currently the most widespread form of Internet connection for the home user. This is a connection from your computer using a modem over standard telephone lines. A modem is simply a device to let your computer talk over the phone line.

Download:
The process of copying a file from the Internet onto your computer. For example, you can download a Word file. When you disconnect from the Internet you can still access the downloaded Word file as it is now copied to your computer.

Email:
Similar to normal postal mail -  there is a ‘from address’ and a ‘to address’ but rather than a postman delivering the mail everything is handled electronically.

FAQ:
Acronym for Frequently Asked Questions.

Firewall:
Used to stop unwanted access to either a computer or a network. If you are using a PC, particularly if you are using broadband we recommend you consider installing the free version of ZoneAlarm.

FTP:
Acronym for File Transfer Protocol. A method of transferring files from one computer to another. A web developer would use FTP to transfer your website from his local computer to the hosting company's server.

GIF:
Acronym for Graphic Interchange Format. Images come in a variety of formats (similarly, movies can come as DVDs or VHS tapes). GIF is one of the main image formats for use on the web. GIF is particularly good for logos and line drawings. Photographs are better as JPEGs (.jpg). Other image types used are PNG, TIFF, etc.

Home Page:
Home Page can either refer to the first web page you come to at a website (e.g. the WELCOME page) or the document displayed when you first open your browser. Also known as the Landing Page.

HTML:
Acronym for HyperText Markup Language. Most web pages are written in a language called HTML. To learn a little HTML is simple. To learn to write HTML takes a lot of hard work.

Hyperlinks
See links.

Internet:
Lots of computers connected together by wires, satellites and radio links etc. Whenever you are surfing the web the computer you are using is connected to the Internet.

JPEG:
Acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group. One of the main image formats for use on the web. Photographs are normally best stored as JPEG images for use on the web. (See GIF).

Links:
Also known as hyperlinks. Connects you from where you are on the web to somewhere else. For example, it may connect you to another website or to a person’s email address etc. When you click on a menu and it opens another page you have clicked a link.

QuickTime:
QuickTime is a movie format developed by Apple. You can download the free QuickTime viewer at Apple's website.

URL:
Acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. Addressing system used in the World Wide Web and other Internet resources. An address such as "http://www.omegawebsolution.com/" is a URL. Also known as a ‘web address’.

Virus:
A program that copies itself across the Internet, especially via email (or by other means, e.g. malicious code embeded in a website). These programs can do annoying or nasty things to your computer. If you use the Internet you should use a virus killer program. We have been pleased with the protection received from these freely available virus killers: AVG anti-virus and AVAST anti-virus (do a Google search for these terms).

Web:
Also known as World Wide Web. Often used informally to mean the collection of computers connected to the Internet. If you had a large map and put a marker pin in it for every computer on the Internet then drew a line (with a very fine pencil) between every point you would soon see why it is called the web. (Think of a spider’s web.)

Webmaster:
Person in charge of running a website.

Web Page:
A single page on the web. A collection of pages is referred to as a website.

Web Server:
A computer permanently connected to the Internet which runs a website. When a visitor requests a page the web server sends it to them.

Website:
Also written ‘web site’. One or more web pages. Just like a book has pages with text and pictures, so can a site.

World Wide Web:
See web.

 

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Admittedly, this is well off our usual fare, but please indulge me in a public service message on behalf of music fans across the Internet — five mistakes that band and label sites make (and a few tips on how to fix them). One data point from a fan.

Too much Flash
Okay, I get it. You’re creative. Awesome. But you’re totally wasting my morning as I helplessly wait for your designer’s dancing sausages to finish loading. Perhaps worst of all, most all-Flash sites prohibit your fans from creating deep links to artist, album or song pages. Your fans are trying to drive people to the cash register, but you insist on making them watch a puppet show before they can even enter the damned store.  

Tip: Use Flash like you would cilantro—sparingly and for a single high-impact effect. Nobody wants to eat a whole bowl of cilantro, and nobody wants an animated death march when they have a “passionate task” to complete. Also, build your pages to make it super-easy to link to anything. Use sub-page anchors, and clearly identify why they’re there.

Crappy or non existent mp3 metadata
If I load up the mp3 of your big single and it says it’s “Song” by “Artist” on the record, “Album,” you’ve completely blown it already; I have no way to ever find you again. Ditto for file naming. Remember: people often download dozens or hundreds of songs at once, so it’s really unlikely they’ll remember where Track%2007.mp3 came from.  

Tip: Fill every possible field of ID3 data with rich, correct information. This is the digital version of an album cover, so give the kids something to read while they’re rocking. Basic track info is a no-brainer, but also consider adding cover art, track number, composer credits, genre and year information, and—duh—add a link to your web site and email address in the comments field. Posting an MP3 without metadata is like Safeway ordering the hair-netted sample lady not to tell hungry customers which aisle those nummy chicken fingers are in.

Too artsy, too fartsy
People are visiting your site because they want to learn more about bands and music—not to have a guided tour of your designer/brother-in-law’s Photoshop brush collection. Don’t be cute with the design, section naming, or navigation. Don’t make your visitors solve a Rubik’s cube to pull up your lyrics page.  

Tip: Let the music be the star of the show and provide fast access to what your visitors really came for: 1) mp3s/downloads, 2) lyrics/discography, 3) show dates, 4) contact info, 5) where can I buy this (preferably pointers to buying online for immediate download). Photos, old setlists, and diaries—anything that paints the personality of the band—are all great, too, of course, but they’re still secondary to posting and updating the holy pentagram of items above. Save the artsy stuff for when you inevitably quit music to take up oil painting.

No search
Chances are good that fans coming to your site arrive with something extremely specific in mind—often a fragment of lyric or the name of one obscure song. If your site contains more than a handful of pages, provide a clearly labeled search box (or link to a search) on every page, and test it. Make sure your search works and drives visitors to your most popular pages without the need for pecking around.  

One-way communication (served one way)
Your fans are not empty vessels or just (ugh) a street team; they have things to say too. Provide a clear contact email address (plus separate ones for press and booking inquiries if you’re all famous and whatnot) and consider having a fan message board and mailing lists for tour and release updates. Read your email, and answer it.  

Just in general? Don’t let your web designer build a portfolio piece on the back of your fans and your business. Ask your fans what they want, watch how they use your site, and then give them what they like without a lot of hooptedoodle.

Copyright 2008 Merlin Mann

 

Everybody's talking about web 2.0 or how to use new traffic strategies to drive more people-rather, buyers to your web sites.

And today, I'm going to show you a very powerful to do just that, without spending a dime (well, maybe a few dollars).

What am I talking about?

YouTube.

Now you should know YouTube pretty well. But allow me give you some facts:

Fact #1: YouTube went from ZERO to 4,000,000,000 MONTHLY visitors within 3 months. And it's still growing by a staggering rate each day.

Fact #2: In 2006, YouTube won Times Magazine's "Invention of the Year."

Fact #3: YouTube is in the Top 5 most valuable web properties in the world.

Fact #4: YouTube features videos from hundreds and thousands of members, and has made MANY people famous.

Fact #5: And get this-more than 75,000 new videos are uploaded every, single day (you see that right.)

Fact #6: Last but not least-YouTube serves up to two hundred MILLION clicks daily.

What does that mean to you as a marketer or an Internet entrepreneur?

Well, it only means there's a HUGE amount of traffic ready to be tapped into if you know how to use YouTube to drive more visitors to your web sites.

We'll discuss how you can use YouTube to drive massive views on your web sites in a while.

But first, "What makes a good YouTube video?"

If you notice, a lot of the videos on YouTube are made by amateurs.

They're usually not professionally filmed videos.

But that's what makes YouTube attractive, isn't it?

These videos are not really professional, and most of the time "RAW", but it's realistic.

Sometimes, they are just THAT much more interesting because they're not really perfect.

To answer our previous question, I'll reveal some of my ideas here.

You see, I'm actually in the process of developing some of my videos to be uploaded on YouTube and use them to drive traffic to my web sites (there's a 'science' to it¡K as some of my clients have proven time and again with their YouTube videos).

Here's what I learned:

YouTube Strategy #1 - Your videos should be short. These shouldn't be long movies, as people are busy and look for instant gratification most of the times. No more than 3 to 4 minutes.

YouTube Strategy #2 - Then, you'd want your web site URL at the bottom of your videos, so people can see it.

YouTube Strategy #3 - Next, this is IMPORTANT: Think of some ways to make your videos viral. See, people on YouTube are constantly on the mindset of: "If I like a video, I'll like to pass it to my friends."

So you want your videos to have some, one or ALL of these characteristics

Characteristics:

- Some of the videos I see pass around are usually FUNNY. Well people love to laugh. They love to make OTHER people laugh. So if your video's funny, it's got humor, people are more likely going to pass it on to their friends.

- Something really weird.

- Something really shocking.

- Something really gross.

- Something just, SHOCKING (again). People love to pass those around.

- Something really interesting.

- Curiosity is ALWAYS good.

- A demonstration is great (especially for targeted traffic). Let's say you have a product, you can show people how it works with your video. Give them a peek at what's in it for them inside.

- Something sexy (can you miss this?).

- Something personal, it could be your own story.

I mean¡K there's so much you can do!

There's an incredibly huge potential with YouTube.

I suggest you open your mind and at least look into how you just MAKE SOMETHING (again, doesn't have to be perfect) to feature on it.

Plus, a lot of these things are COMMON SENSE!

You don't have to buy any products to learn how to make videos people talk about. You see, what do you think would make a good video YOU would want to pass on to your friends?

Write them down, choose one of them and be your own producer for the first time if you haven't (trust me, it's fun too).

If you have, can you figure out how to benefit from some of the strategies mentioned above?

Go on there, make a video for traffic purposes or simply for demonstration.

Of course we're barely scratching the surface of what you can do with YouTube. If you can get a little creative, there's a LOT more you can do on this amazing place. Copyright (c) 2008 Quick Turn Marketing International, Ltd.

 

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Blog and website owners have many tasks on their plate and tons of new features and tips to mull over. One of the basics for blogging and webmastering for success is remembering the way real estate works when designing and adding value to your site.

You can't just pile on the widgets and backlinks and forget them just like you can't just buy a home and not keep it up, maintain it or update it. Frequent house cleaning is required and you need to periodically check that all those links and widgets are still active and up to date. You'll do your site harm if you're linking to dead links or sites where content has changed beyond your set standard.

Your sidebar is your driveway and sidewalk. Your sidebar will typically be filled with color, many different advertisements and widgets. Just like walking onto a property for the first time, people judge the rest of your home/site by how they are greeted on the approach. Tone it down. Keep it minimal if possible and if not, organize your space so that the ads mesh well together and there's nothing offensive to your site or content.

Selecting the perfect paint colors is the same for your website. You wouldn't paint your living room black and accent it with fluorescent yellow and green, would you? You want your home and site to be a relaxing oasis and have a welcoming feel. Visitors will likely stay longer if they feel comfortable. Stay away from too many combinations as it becomes too busy. Your call to action and award winning article will be swallowed in the over abundance of colors. You're selling your site to your viewer. You may even be selling a product or service. While online, you can't sell face to face so the next impression are the colors that hit your readers upon entry. Depending on your site's subject, your personality or the personalities you're trying to attract, here are standard colors, what they're associated with and what type of psychological emotion they invoke in people:

PURPLE - feminine, luxurious, eccentric, royal, dreamy.

BLUE - success, sincerity, trust, professional, power, truth, respect, seriousness.

ORANGE - cheap, young, vacation, comedy, celebrating, fun.

WHITE - safe, simple, clean, conservative, inhibition, innocent, pure.

PINK - teen, youth, party, fun, baby, maternal, feminine, soft, sweet.
GREEN - eco, outdoors, money, winning, animals, life, serene, global, political, healing.

BLACK - attitude, seriousness, negative, dark, gloomy, cover up, secret.

BROWN - earthy, homey, eco, nature, simple, safe, emotional, warm.
YELLOW - loud, action, seasonal, youth, fun, questioning.

GREY - business, safe, calm, trustworthy, neutral, reserved.
RED - bold, loud, statement, call to action, attention, adventure, definite, passionate, danger.

Keeping it simple is a nightmare but necessary. After having a website or blog for years, you've accumulated widgets and social networking buttons galore. You're becoming a Realtor's worst nightmare, a pack rat. We don't like selling homes that are cluttered and it's one of the hardest things to get the owner to recognize. We're all guilty of buying new gadgets, adding new shoes to the closet and new buttons and features to our sites. It's time to declutter. What do you absolutely not need on your sidebars? What hasn't brought you an eyeball in months? What site that you're required to link to can fit on the very bottom of your page tucked away from eyes? Ticking clocks and calendars are a waste of space. You may think they look great and while they might, get rid of them. Thanks for the redundant reminder, but everyone online has a clock and calendar on their taskbar.

Walking into a property or website should positively land that first impression. If you walk into the front door and there's an odor or seventeen vases of fake flowers poking you, you're already wanting to leave. If you arrive on a web page and there's an overwhelming feeling of panic attack, it's time to step back and reevaluate. Pick someone's style you trust and ask them to critique your homepage honestly and brutally as you would your home. Listen to the ideas and criticism. Get a few more opinions and compare them. Look at your header. Is it too large to see content? Do your viewers have to scroll for miles beyond Adsense and widgets to get to the purpose? Do you have your favorite country song on loop hoping your visitors like it as much as you? What about ads or pop-ups asking them to sign up? I don't care how great of a writer you are or how lovely your homemade jewelry is, a good portion of your guests will be exiting. Hopefully they're not tripping over the pornographic dating ads in the driveway as they pick up speed.

Choosing your site's (location, location, location) is actually up to you. Many site owners or bloggers complain about the mighty three search engines not liking them. They like you, you just haven't chosen the location you want on the first page. See what the top ten are doing and have done to get there. Pick a few phrases you want to rank high for and evaluate the competition. Get an idea of what they're doing to achieve their results. Ultimately, if you want to get to where they are you need to write keyword and keyphrase rich content that has the proper percentage and range within your posts or articles. Properly adding a noticeable accent color to a room is the same with keyword placement. If you repeatedly use the accent color to the point of annoyance, it's no longer an accent but a forced theme. If you use the same keyword or phrase so many times that it's no longer reader friendly, the search engines and your guests aren't happy about it. Spreading out your desired words/phrases within the text creatively, the same with an accent color will provide a perfect harmony. It's noticed but not obvious. Not too much, not too little. A well placed writer on the search engines writes with both Google and their reader in mind in everything they do.

Making offers and negotiations are encouraged. If you're trying to step up your marketing campaign and shell out a few bucks for monthly or yearly advertising, shop the top sites that are ranked well and make them an offer. Don't be intimidated by their asking price or industry standard rates. Make them a fair offer and preferably long term so that the price is higher and they're foolish to decline. Don't insult but don't give too much. There's a fine line and negotiating is an art. Start with 10% off their asking price and contact them respectfully, enthusiastically and seriously. You can save enough over a few sites to get one for free. That's an additional backlink. Depending on the site it's on, it could tip you over the edge in the location department and increase your click through eyeballs.

Entertain and make guests feel at home on your website. Doing this properly will ensure they miss you and want to come back. Being rude to your guests by forcing them to see and hear things they didn't ask for and not designing or keeping up with your site, is a mistake.

It's my opinion that established websites and blogs in the future will have a higher value than today. More and more companies and bigger pockets will want sites that are already prevalent and have readership and earnings. If you build it right and keep making your visitors and advertisers happy, you may end up experiencing appreciation and be able to cash in on a future hot market. Invest wisely now and take proper care of your virtual real estate.

©2008 Cecilia Sherrard

Cecilia Sherrard is a full time real estate agent in Cleveland Ohio and is the webmaster for Cleveland's largest real estate website

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Editorial Review of Web Pages

 An editor can help you polish the content of your web pages before you release them to the rest of the world by improving the grammar, punctuation, and consistency, and by making content suggestions.

The editor can also serve as your usability tester, so be sure to create a list of any aspects of your web page design or content for which you particularly need feedback. (You can provide this information in the appropriate area of the editing request form, listed in "Editing References.")

To schedule editing, submit a hard-copy version of your web pages for the editorial review along with the completed editing request form. Or, provide the URL and the completed electronic editing request. A hard-copy edit decreases the likelihood that questionable corrections will be made to the electronic file. The paper version also gives you a handwritten record of the changes.

USAGE REFERENCES

For more information on writing style conventions, see the following:

The Chicago Manual of Style. 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1994.

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. 2d ed. New York: Random House, 1987. 

Web Facts

79% of users always scan; only 16% read word-by-word

Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper

Web content should be 50% the size of its paper equivalent

 

White Papers re-written according to these guidelines have shown significant improvements in all metrics:

Task Time: User Error: Memory: Subjective satisfaction: Overall usability:

180% faster 809% fewer 100% more 37% higher 159% better

Copyright 1994-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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 Navigation

Navigating a web document differs from navigating the Web. A web document fits within one or more web pages and covers a focused topic. The web page is the unit displayed to the user and can contain one or more web documents (as well as other web elements).

NAVIGATING DOCUMENTS

When writing a document for the Web, use links to guide the reader through the document. Think of "linking" as the quickest means to get the user to the most relevant information. Whenever possible, state conclusions and link to supporting details; enumerate categories and link to lists; summarize and link to full-length treatments. This allows the user to scan the contents of a page and select relevant and useful information.

Links embedded in a document are the primary links that you want a reader to see; since readers use links as guideposts in scanning, you want to use them correctly and write in a way that takes best advantage of them. Only the most pertinent should be "part" of the document. Don't let links become a distraction. Position less relevant, but meaningful links of additional information in the web page's margin or at the end of the document under a "See Also" label.

NAVIGATING THE WEB

If a link takes the user "outside" the document, then its purpose is to navigate the Web site (or direct the reader to a third-party web site). Whenever possible, links such as these should guide the user to additional information that is directly connected--not only to the topic of the document, but to the topic of the paragraph or section being read.

Writing to be Read

Heads:	Make the topmost head on the page an H1, worded so that the user knows why the page is important. Make sure that heads clearly indicate the content of the sections. Avoid in-line character formatting to heads--the results are unpredictable, varying from browser to browser. Organize your text so that the hierarchy is no deeper than four levels. Lower-level heads are hard to distinguish and disorienting to online readers.
Lists:	You can include a greater number of lists on a web page than on a printed paper page. Use numbered lists when the order of entries is important. Use unnumbered lists whenever the sequence of the entries is not important. Limit the number of items in a single list to no more than nine. Generally, limit lists to no more than two levels: primary and secondary.
Captions:	Make sure that the caption uniquely identifies the illustration or table. For example, do not give the same name to the caption as you have given to a head on the same page or another page. Caption illustrations except when the context is so clear that captions would be redundant. Don't number illustrations sequentially by chapter, section, or the like. If a screen capture has more than one illustration to which you must refer, use a simple numbering scheme (Figure 1, Figure 2). If you follow the "one topic per screen" guideline, however, figure numbers usually won't be necessary. Don't include figure captions unless you need them or have a lot of conceptual or reference material.
Hyperlinks:	Don't use a hypertext link if the information can be succinctly presented on the current page. Don't mention that you are providing links at all. Use a description of the information to be found in the link, or perhaps the link address. Use hyperlinks to provide supplemental information like definitions of terms and abbreviations, reference information, and background reading. Cluster cross-references under a "See also" (or similar) heading where appropriate. Generally, such lists of cross-references are easiest to read if they include only headings or titles with a few words of explanation. NOTE: The left navigation bar on www.sun.com correctly lists cross-references with no explanatory text.

Copyright 1994-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

 

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Working With a Designer

 If you need artwork, set up a meeting with the designer to deliver a rough sketch of the proposed artwork.

SOME GENERAL WEB GRAPHIC GUIDELINES CAN IMPROVE READABILITY:

Limit the use of graphics, particularly full-page graphics. The time it takes to load such images can frustrate many of your users.

Include flowcharts and process diagrams and unique captions identifying them.

Use screen captures if they can help the user understand how a product works.

Add a caption or an explanatory note that a screen is the result of a user action, if it is unclear that the graphic is not interactive.

Scannability

Seventy-nine percent of Web users scan pages; they do not read word-by-word. Design your web document to be scannable:

To make keywords stand out, use highlighting liberally: Highlight about three times as many words as you would when writing for print.

Use the <STRONG> tag rather than the <EM> tag for keyword highlighting. Since STRONG is usually rendered as boldface, this is typically the best way to highlight words.

Colored text or colored backgrounds can also be used for highlighting, but don't use blue for words. That color is reserved for hyperlinks.

The hyperlinks also stand out by virtue of being colored, so they should be written to do double duty as highlighted keywords.

Highlight only key information-carrying words. Avoid highlighting entire sentences or long phrases since a scanning eye can only pick up two (or at most three) words at a time.

Highlight words that differentiate your page from other pages and words that symbolize what a given paragraph is about (for example, do not highlight the word "Sun" when writing for the Sun Web site since all the pages are about Sun.)

The <EM> tag is usually rendered as italics and can be used to make figure captions or emphasized sentences or phrases stand out. Do not use it for large blocks of text, since italic typefaces are slower to read online.

Bulleted and numbered lists slow down the scanning eye and can draw attention to important points.

Each paragraph should contain one main idea; use a second paragraph for a second idea, since users tend to skip any second point as they scan over the paragraph.

Start the page with the conclusion as well as a short summary of the remaining contents ("inverted pyramid" style).

Copyright 1994-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

 

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The following article is taken from Sun Microsystem's Web site: Writing for the Web by Jakob Nielsen distinguished engineer; PJ Schemenaur, technical editor; and Jonathan Fox, editor-in-chief, www.sun.com  The original article may be found, in its entirety, at: http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/index.html

Writing for the Web

You can double the usability of your web site by following these guidelines: for two sample sites studied in Sun's Science Office, we improved measured usability by 159% and 124% by rewriting the content according to the guidelines.

Writing for the Web is very different from writing for print:

• 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word
• Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper
• Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent

The Difference Between Paper and Online Presentation

In print, your document forms a whole and the user is focused on the entire set of information. On the Web, you need to split each document into multiple hyperlinked pages since users are not willing to read long pages.

Users can enter a site at any page and move between pages as they chose, so make every page independent and explain its topic without assumptions about the previous page seen by the user.

Link to background or explanatory information to help users who do not have the necessary knowledge to understand or use the page.

Make the word count for the online version of a given topic about half the word count used when writing for print: Users find it painful to read too much text on screens, and they read about 25 percent more slowly from screens than from paper.

Users don't like to scroll through masses of text, so put the most important information at the top.

Web users are impatient and critical: They have not chosen your site because you are great but because they have something they need to do. Write in the "news you can use" style to allow users to quickly find the information they want.

Credibility is important on the Web where users connect to unknown servers at remote locations. You have to work to earn the user's trust, which is rapidly lost if you use exaggerated claims or overly boastful language; avoid "marketese" in favor of a more objective style.

A few hyperlinks to other sites with supporting information increase the credibility of your pages. If at all possible, link quotes from magazine reviews and other articles to the source.

The Web is an informal and immediate medium, compared to print, so users appreciate a somewhat informal writing style and small amounts of humor.

Do not use clever or cute headings since users rely on scanning to pick up the meaning of the text.

Limit the use of metaphors, particularly in headings: Users might take you literally.

Use simple sentence structures: Convoluted writing and complex words are even harder to understand online.

Puns do not work for international users; find some other way to be humorous.

Add bylines and other ways of communicating some of your personality. (This also increases credibility.)

The Web is a fluid medium: Update pages as time goes by to reflect all changes. Statistics, numbers, and examples all need to be recent or credibility suffers.

For example: Before a conference, the page about the event might point to a registration form; afterward, point to slides or presentation transcripts instead.

Article© Copyright 1994-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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