Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
DonorPowerBlog has a good recent post on the importance of making copy on your website readable. There's several good tips for getting users to read more of your content, including the occasional use of
bold text to prevent skimming and what to avoid.
What would you add to this list of tips?
--Megan
Avoid abbreviations and acronyms since Screen Readers don't "pronounce" them correctly and 'others" may not understand what they signify or confuse with a similar one.
Use proper "semantics". Just like in a word document If you use a Header 3 (H3) you should already have an H1 and an H2 in your flow. Screen readers can jump by Headings to give the user a synopsis that saves time and frustration. It also organizes your text in a way that's easier to grasp with a glance for sighted users.
Joined on 01-05-2005
TechSoup Member
Really appreciate your comments about acronyms. it re-enforces what I keep telling people. What does H1 and H2 mean?
H1, H2, H3 stand for heading levels with Heading 1 being the largest and base.
Headings nest and allow someone with a glance (or with a screen reader that reads out the headings) see the structure and information in an article/posting/page of a web site.
Unfortunately many web sites just use a paragraph tag or a span and up the font size/change color, whatever instead of defining the structure semantically with Headings.
Joined on 02-09-2004
TechSoup Member
You can use the acronym tag.
see the following link
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_acronym.asp
this is readable with the major screen readers
Joined on 07-22-2008
TechSoup Member
I'm a freelance technical writer and website content writer, and the biggest mistake I see is that of trying to fit too much into one sentence. My suggestion: break up long sentences into short ones. Break up long paragraphs into short ones. It only makes the information clearer and more digestible.
This is a great thread - thanks for kicking it off Megan and I hope it generates lots of input.
Being somewhat 'visually challenged', with friends who are genuinely blind I'm another who abhores the use of acronyms because of the issue of context.
Tools like acronym tags only help software understand something is an acronym; it does not help people understand what a given acronym is supposed to portray. I think too many web designers forget the web is global. For example the acronym 'ABC' can mean many different things to many different people even when taken in single context (eg an organisational entity).
Yeah, this is a great thread indeed.
I'm a strong proponent of making your Web copy easy to read by all. I agree with Lora about breaking up long paragraphs on your page into smaller, more readable chunks.
And like Susan mentioned earlier, it's a good idea to make effective use of headings and subheadings in your text; the H1, H2 (etc...) tags are useful for this purpose. So consider putting your main page titles and section headings inside these tags.
By including these tags in your pages you help to not only organize the flow and structure of your content, but also the search engines tend to pickup on pages that include them.
Just another way to make your site's copy more accessible and effective in the long run...
Yann