This is the third post in my series on life as an iUser. Following on from last week's post on site design and the iPhone (or iPod touch) today I'm thinking, briefly, about content.
We hear it often: readers don’t read on the web, they scan. But some people at desktops do have time to concentrate hard on what they are doing. My iPhone and I unfortunately don’t.
A major component of getting an iUser to touch base with you is therefore to make sure you truly follow the principles of good writing for the web when developing content relevant to people on the move.
The following points relate as much to documents I might open as attachments from my inbox, to emails I might receive, blog posts in my feed reader, and web page content.
Write to be read on the move
When it comes to content development remember I am in an experience, I don’t want an experience. (Though I had to laugh when one of the speakers at the recent Webstock conference pointed out this t-shirt: “I went outside once; the graphics are not that good”.)
What this means is I’m not so interested in your vision for me, your welcome to me, nor pretty images you think I will like. I just want your information up front.
If I could ask you to do five easy things to any content you provide that is relevant to me on the move, they would be:
- Don’t gush first then give me a summary of the gush. Give me the potted version first (especially in emails - it will help me decide whether I need to open your email now or later) - a good summary will take you a very long way
- Simplify. Think poetry not prose, and say more with less.
- White space. Use it. I’m never going to print.
- Active not passive language. Front load everything, from link text to sentences. That way if the end is cut off because I’ve had to zoom in to read and you aren’t using a mobile device style sheet, I’ve got the gist from the first half of your link or sentence.
- Put context in your micro-content. Not ‘on Sunday’ but ‘on Sunday 21st March 2008’ (unless it’s every Sunday forever and ever). Not the library but the National Library. Not ‘open today’ but ‘open today, the 4th of December 2008’, not click here but Opening hours for the National Library.
Next time, more serious technical thoughts on optimising for the iGeneration. In the meantime, it’s awful quiet out there. Get in touch via the comments, eh?
1 comments:
Great advice once again. And a few that can be applied to any form of content, whatever the device it is aimed at (especially making links make sense in their own right etc etc).
Had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at the National Library in February - in the music department. Very helpful chaps down there let me use one of the office computers to scan in some documents instead of having to lug photocopies home.
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