I am currently rewriting/reworking our department’s Web site content as well as the overall structure. It is a disaster! It has been a lesson in why people who do NOT understand how people read content online should not be responsible for posting content, let alone creating the structure in which that content resides. Jennie Robinson’s article, Resurrect Your Writing, Redeem Your Soul, is, in regards to my current task, “Heaven Sent!” As Robinson so poignantly states,
Bad writing that has been “Webified” can look great on screen and to search engines, but to human beings, it’s still just bad writing.
…We Web people know there’s a better way, but we fear exclusion if we abandon the cult of pressed and filtered pseudo-communication.
You know you’re on the Information Superhighway to Hell if crap like enhance, leverage, implement, context, driver, focus, core, actionable, outcome and stakeholder crops up in your copy.
Robinson notes that you should avoid buzzwords and corporate lingo on your business site—who other than those “in the know” will know what you are talking about?! Instead, use plain English or descriptive writing to express the same ideas to a global audience. I have always been taught that you should write for “scanning” on the Web, but Robinson argues
…our gurus say people don’t read on the Web because they’re jolt-addicted, impatient, and impulsive. And when they do read, they certainly shouldn’t have to think! They scan and skim, so long or too-lively text can’t possibly communicate meaning quickly enough.
Are people still in a mad rush for that one salient bit of info? (Were they ever?) Or do they more quickly recognize ill-intentioned writing, engorged with confused cliches and lacy lingo? Even if they’re not under time constraints, they’re left with no choice but to filter out useless information or surf on. We’re catering to a “need” to escape Web pages that our poor, humorless writing instilled in our audience in the first place. Caving in to conventions won’t help you rise above the drone of dull.
Some need or notion inspires what you’re doing on the Web. Give people some credit—doling out an information fix doesn’t have to preclude thoughtful writing. …Web copy is rhetorical—that is, it is meant to affect individual human beings.
…Avoid just defining who you are and what you’ve got; instead, describe people and their real problems. Demonstrate your understanding, don’t just proclaim it.
So, what does this all mean for my overwhelming task and the hours of work already invested? I guess another look would be worth taking. After all, “when the copy saints go marching in, [I want to] be in that number” (Robinson 2005).
