S8080 Blog

Blogs seem to be driving the internet these days – while recent reports suggest that overall, growth is slowing for the top sites, sites focused on social networking are more popular than ever.

It seems that blogs have helped the web world through some tough times recently, as some of the main blogging sites show the most increased traffic – blogger.com and myspace.com.

At one point, blogger.com traffic increased by 528% according to market research firm ComScore Media Metrix.

Blogging allows individuals the freedom to share their thoughts, knowledge and ideas and the statistics clearly show that people want this sort of content - in fact, go and get blogging now!

Huh?

Weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a website, or section of a website that consists of ‘articles’ or journal entries, written by an individual (or group of individuals) presented in a reverse chronological order.

S8080 welcomes two new people to the S8080 team, Al Davies, our South East business development manager and Andy Begley, a talented graphic designer.

Al works out of our Bristol office and looks after our accounts from Bristol along the M4 corridor to London. He comes from a heavy IT business development background and was looking for a more creative organisation to work with. “On the creative side S8080 are untouchable. The clean design, the user centred approach and attention to detail are outstanding. Moreover, it’s the technical and project management side that also impressed me. To go out in the field and be totally confident and comfortable that whatever you’re showing the people is exactly what the people will get, and nothing less – that’s refreshing – and very rewarding for everyone involved. In fact it’s almost as good as Australia beating England at just about every sport you can think of…”

Yes, he is Australian. Thank you Al.

Andy has joined the creative side of the team after more years than he cares to remember in print design. S8080 handles quite a bit of print design for clients who want to maintain a consistency with their online campaigns – but it does represent a very small part of our turnover. Andy is easily making the transition over to new media design, bringing a quality that only experience can deliver.

Glad to have you both on the team!

Some people like to go for stroll on a Sunday after dinner or maybe walk the dog after work. Some people, myself included, are a little more serious about their walking. I am happiest in the Brecon Beacon mountains around my home in South Wales. I try to get into the hills at least once or twice a month.

But then some peoples walking habits are sheer lunacy.

A few months ago, I heard a podcast about Matt Hazley, a young hod carrier from Essex who one day decided to walk almost 8000 miles across the US in one year. He did it and decided on a new career as an extreme endurance hiker.

This summer, Matt is planning to hike the Appalachian Trail in the US, from Maine to Georgia – 2175 miles, 250 mountains and 100 miles of elevation (yes, 100 miles!) in just 40 days – that is a week quicker than the current record help by ultra runner, Andrew Thompson.

I tracked Matt down, gave him a ring and before long S8080 was building him a website supporting his record breaking attempt and help raise money for his chosen charity, steps.

Do the sums… 2175 miles divided by 40 days equals 54 miles a day. How will he do this?

Over to Matt… “I plan on sticking to a routine that my body can maintain for the 40 days. I aim to start at 3 or 4 am each morning and hike for 18 hours each day. Without a pack I can maintain 4mph as an average. The question will be for how many days I can keep it up! I can only answer this question by trying 100%”.

Matt will be starting his attempt this summer when most of the snow has cleared. We will be publishing Matt’s trail diary live on his new site www.matthazley.com so please take a look and support this young British hero on his quest and maybe even donate a few pounds to steps, a charity that helps families, children and individuals with lower limb conditions.

… and if you think this is a little crazy, wait until you see what he has planned for 2008!

Web users like easy to scan, concise, objective website copy. Here are some tips on writing copy for the web.

Be concise

Steve Krug (web usability expert) says: “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left”. Write copy for the impatient online reader – a guide is:

• Headings: 8 words or less
• Sentences: 15 – 20 words
• Paragraphs: 40 – 70 words
• Page word count: 250+ words

Remove anything that fails to convey useful information & sentences that begin with the phrase “welcome to…”

Write “scan-able” text

Screen reading is tiring, users don’t stay on websites for long, information overload is a common usability issue. Users rarely read an entire page of text – so write scan-able content:

• Put important information or even a summary at the top of the page – allowing visitors to dive into the detail if they are interested.
• Use of headings and subheadings
• Use bold, italics and colour to highlight important content keywords
• Use bullet points & numbered lists where possible to rest the eye & break walls of text

Objective – ditch marketing speak, acronyms, jargon & hype

Credit your users – they are aware of marketing spin & hype

• Remove adjectives (e.g. great), buzzwords & claims which are not supported by evidence – but get a balance without removing all your promotional material
• Give visitors the facts and allow them to make their own decisions.
• Some users will not use the same terminology & acronyms – don’t alienate them, get your copy reviewed by someone out of the sector – did they understand it?

A friendly accessible writing style

This builds trust, but don’t dumb everything down too much! Don’t patronise…

• Keep content brief, direct, to the point.
• Simple, plain, understandable & real life English, informal English allows scanning of words, formal English requires visitors to read every word
• Short line lengths & paragraphs
• Simple sentence structures
• Use a copywriter to polish your text and then test it on the audience.
• Link to the detail in another page and offer printable alternatives (print styles / PDF)
• External links – increases users impression that the information is creditable you reference supporting online information.

Limit instructional text

Users don’t generally read instructions unless they are really stuck (when did you last read a manual?) – normally they just muddle through, that is why information architecture and usability is so important.

• When you do need instructions, keep them to an absolute minimum.
• Do some usability testing (this doesn’t need to be expensive), it shows areas where instructions are needed or where a re-design is needed

Edit & check and then edit some more

Get two or three people proofread your text. Check it yourself for consistency in grammar, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations & spell check.

See also:

Jakob Nielson:

http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Steve Krug’s book “Don’t make me think” & supporting website:

http://www.sensible.com/