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Structuring Your Prose
Documents written to be read online should be concise and structured for scanning. Most online readers are at some point “scanners” who skim web pages rather than read them word by word. Even methodical readers will appreciate your efforts to accommodate online reading patterns rather than forcing readers to slow down and pick their way through your pages in order to glean information. That said, keep in mind that much content is not well suited to the telegraphic style that works well for online documents. Web authors often cut so much out of their presentations that what remains would barely fill a printed pamphlet. Concise writing is always better, but don’t dumb down what you have to say. Simply make printing easy for those who prefer to read offline, and you can use the web to deliver content without cutting the heart out of what you have to say.
Site structure
The first accommodation for online reading is in how you structure your site. Rather than provide a single page with all the information on a topic, break up a body of information into logical “chunks,” each on its own page, and connect the pages using links. This approach accommodates online reading by providing direct access to subcategories of specific information rather than combining all information about a topic on a single page.
Only use chunking where it makes sense (see chapter 3, Chunking information). Don’t break up a long document arbitrarily; users will have to download each page and will have difficulty printing or saving the entire piece. The key to good chunking is to divide your information into comprehensive segments. That way users will have direct and complete access to the topics they are interested in without having to wade through irrelevant material or follow a series of links to get the whole picture.
As you review content for your new or revised site, always look for opportunities to develop and use modular, consistent means of approaching content topics. A consistent, repeatable, well-specified content structure makes it much easier for writers and editors to understand what is expected of them. Modular structure is also easier on users, since they can quickly predict how to scan chunks of content that share the same structure (fig. 9.1).
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