Communicating Through the Web Vol. 1 | Page 23

3Keep it short.

Onscreen reading is hard on the eyes, and online visitors resent every lost nanosecond.

• Keep paragraphs short, ideally down to one or two sentences

• Keep sentences concise

• Avoid convoluted constructions

• Avoid semi-colons or sentences with two or more clauses

• Try to convert long sentences to bulleted lists.

4Make it scannable.

Make sure there are handy visual clues pointing the reader to the information they’re seeking. Such visual clues include:

• Subheads

• Headers

• Bullets

• Numbers

• Bold or highlighted text

• Navigational images.

5Use graphics sparingly.

A picture tells a thousand words. But only use pictures, charts, tables, and other graphics where they will serve to convey the information more quickly and effectively than text.