Getting it right...write now

There are some big changes ahead for the University website, as you will have seen from Jo’s earlier posts. At the heart of these plans is the desire to improve the experience for our website users – whether students, potential students, staff or members of the public.

But putting the technical developments to one side, there are lots of simple things we could all start doing right now to make our website more user friendly.

Here are a few tips for anyone who contributes to our web content...

Putting the user first
It can be tempting to create our content according to how we work, or how we are structured, but this rarely reflects how our users might need to find information. Try to imagine you have no prior knowledge of the University and its workings – what would you need to know? And how would you want that information to be delivered?

The devil’s in the detail
What details are really needed by our users? Sometime the kind of information we use to ‘set up’ our page may be more meaningful to us than to them. For example:

“The Department was established in 1995 and we moved to our new offices earlier this year”.

This may be central to our experience as a member of staff but does the user really need to know?

Hearing us loud and clear
We pride ourselves on being a friendly University and how we communicate is vital part of expressing our character.

Very formal, densely written or complex language can be really off-putting, particularly online. It can give the impression that we are a stuffy, unapproachable place to study or work. For example, which of these sounds friendlier? :

“Our support services are available to you whilst you are a student here, and we trust that you will make use of them should you need to.”

OR

“We are on hand to provide support throughout your time here – don’t hesitate to contact us for more information”

Finally, if in doubt, try reading your web copy out loud - imagine you are talking to a to a friend or colleague. If it sounds or feels 'unnatural' then head back to the drawing board!

Hope that helps. If you are interested in more web writing tips then leave a comment.