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Layer the Details

Less is More

Chunking the Content

Writing Guidelines

Design Hints





[Web Advisory Group]




 MIT Libraries

Writing for the Web:
Guidelines for MIT Libraries

Less is more!

Include only what users want and need.

  • How?
    • Cut! Cut! Cut! Find the essence.
    • Put it away for a day or two.
    • Look it over and cut again.
  • With each sentence, ask: Do users want or need that?
  • Then ask: Do they really want or need that?
  • Morkes and Nielsen cut the words by 54% and people thought the site's treatment of topics was more complete.
    http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/rewriting.html



Most of the content of this site is drawn from a workshop given by Janice (Ginny) Redish, Ph.D. at User Interface 2000 in November 1999.
http://www2.ari.net/redish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  hennig@mit.edu