Text & Typography

Aspects of WritingWriting for the web has two major mechanisms, both of which must be used consciously and with care; Editorial Style (grammar and use of words) and Typography (realisation of the text).

Editorial Style

Writing for the web must allow for the reading method and the audience experience. The principal reading method on the web is “scanning”, viewing the “shape” of text and reading parts of it. Because the web can be multimedia, the audience experience can be much richer than for print media, and text is therefore treated differently.
Reading on the web is different from reading print media:
» It is a more unpleasant experience
» It is less sequential
» It involves more independance of pages
» It is 25% slower than reading print
Importance of ConsistencyIn any high quality text, consistency is crucial. A consistent editorial style is called a "house style" (from "publishing houses") This covers issues such as word length, sentence length, choices in punctuation, and use of slang and taboo words. Consistent typography specifies features such as character fonts, margins and justification.

Even modern computer displays are much lower resolution than printed text. A good display will have around 100 dpi (dots per inch); whereas typical magazines and books have 1200 dpi or more. The lower resolution strongly affects the quality of the typeface.
Useful practices for improving typography and legibility on the web include:
» Use blank lines as paragraph spacers rather than indents. Blank lines aid scanning and more strongly guide the eye.
» Use narrow columns for paragrpahs rather than the full screen width: optimised line length is around 8cm

A large website should have an individual involved specifically to look after the editorial style and typography. If this cannot be justified financially, care should still be taken to keep the English simple and correct, and the formatting the same, with careful proofreading and tools such as spelling and grammar checkers used wherever possible.