Copywriting for the Web

Intermediate

Quick question: Have you ever been to an atrocious website for a subject that really interests you? Yeah, probably. And you probably forgave the brain-dead structure and dilettantish design. Why? Because the content was interesting/relevant/useful/entertaining.

This is why the Nobel Prize for literature doesn’t go to the designer of the dust jacket. It’s also why content remains the single most important element in most on-line UX projects.

In just three hours, Eric will show you how to create findable, scanable, skimable, and readable on-line content. This is the stuff that creates understanding, builds trust, and increases conversion rates. Topics include:

• Why writing for the web is different (basic observations and hard facts)
• Navigation (labels, not graphics)
• Shared-reference building (getting folks on the same mental page)
• Descriptions (core content)
• Contextual navigation (locally relevant links)
• Convenience text (alt texts, pop-ups, FAQs, and instructions)
• Information architecture (from a content-provider point-of-view)
• Metadata (machine-readable keywords, titles, and descriptions).

Eric won’t teach you how to un-mix your metaphors (if you’re a lousy writer, this is not the workshop for you). But if you’re already a decent wordsmith, here’s how you can take your talent to the web. And Eric will also kill off a bunch of myths about what works and what doesn’t, and give you the tools needed to enjoy online success.

Killer content or content that kills?

Thanks to CMS, it’s easy to fill a web page with dynamic content. Web 2.0 techniques and technologies make it easy for users to add their own contributions. And graphic designers are constantly seeking new ways to differentiate their work. Yet the noisier our pages get, the more difficult it can be to spot the important information. Worse still, if the information surrounding the core content is irrelevant to the mission of the page and/or the goals of the user, inclusion may actually kill the user experience and undermine the business goals of the site owner. This presentation seeks to introduce the concepts of Web Dogma ’06, a generic mindset created to help web professionals avoid a growing problem.