Reading (Writing) + Quiz

DUE Wednesday, Mar 07 – 4 points
(Thursday NOON deadline)

For this assignment, you will need to read the following items from the book and from the web.

  • [Book cover: Website Owner's Manual]Writing Killer Content
    This fifth chapter of the Website Owner’s Manual looks at how to write content for the web.

  • Jakob Nielsen is a well-known expert in web usability, and he has lots to say about writing content for the web. (Paul even mentions a couple of his posts in his chapter five.) These three articles from  Nielsen’s web site provide some excellent tips on writing different types of content:

    • Writing for the Web (March 15, 1997) — An oldie, but a goodie
    • Microcontent (September 6, 1998) — Tips for writing headlines and other short pieces of content
    • Twitter Postings (August 24, 2009) — A good look at how people read tweets

Once you have completed the reading, you will need to take a quiz of ten true-false questions. (These questions will be randomly selected from the questions below. You can retake the quiz up to five times. Don’t stress about getting 100% on these quizzes: if you get 80% or better, you will be ready to proceed to the next activity and I will give you the full 3 points.)

All questions should be prefaced with an understood, “According to the author of the material … “:

  1. T/F? Most organizations do not rewrite content for the web; instead, they simply acquire content from other offline sources (like print brochures) and publish it online.
  2. T/F? Paul believes that writing for print is more challenging than writing for the web.
  3. T/F? Paul believes that content is king online.
  4. T/F? Drivers often stop by the side of the road to read billboards.
  5. T/F? Monitors display text at roughly the same resolution as print.
  6. T/F? Content must be written to work in isolation: users may not have seen other pages on your site.
  7. T/F? Paul believes the biggest part of creating web site content is deciding what to exclude.
  8. T/F? Reducing content helps users find what they want more quickly and prevents users from becoming overwhelmed.
  9. T/F? Paul tells a story of a charity that successfully completed an application that helps users identify moths and butterflies.
  10. T/F? Writing content is easy: it is no problem getting people to write content for your web site in their spare time.
  11. T/F? Paul suggests you use marketing copy that is full of its own self importance.
  12. T/F? A site map is the hierarchical structure of your site organized like a family tree.
  13. T/F? Paul recommends card sorting because it is more flexible and tactile for creating site maps than any software package.
  14. T/F? A site map is a great way to explain the structure of web applications.
  15. T/F? A use case identifies the process by which a user achieves a particular goal.
  16. T/F? You can assume that your users know all your acronyms.
  17. T/F? You should be sure to include links to as much content as you can on the home page because users hate to click multiple levels deep to find something.
  18. T/F? You should be sure to include as many links as possible in the navigation because this is the only way users can find content.
  19. T/F? Most users are comfortable reading copy on the web.
  20. T/F? By “front loading,” Paul means putting a summary paragraph at the top of every page and beginning each paragraph with its main point.
  21. T/F? Paul recommends using headings, short paragraphs, highlighting, and lists to make web content easier to scan.
  22. T/F? In 1997, Jakob Nielsen predicted we’d have screens with 300 dpi resolution by now.
  23. T/F? Jakob Nielsen recommends using “cute” headings to keep your readers interested in your content.
  24. T/F? Using nested headings make your site easy to read for both people scanning your content and for screen readers.
  25. T/F? To keep pages short, Jakob Nielsen recommends using a single-flow series of links like “continued on page 2.”
  26. T/F? Content on the web should use a traditional pyramid, starting with the foundation and building to the conclusion.
  27. T/F? You should not begin headlines with articles like “The” and “A.”
  28. T/F? You cannot highlight words in Twitter with background colors or bold text, but you can put important words in ALL CAPS.
  29. T/F? You should use full sentences in posts on Twitter because it makes your content sound more intelligent.
  30. T/F? The longer the text is, the more important it is to design it for usability.

DUE Wednesday, Mar 07 – 4 points
(Thursday NOON deadline)