Content Matters http://deyalexander.com.au/blog Research, ideas, opinions and examples of good and bad web content... because good content matters! Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:56:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 en I heard you the first time http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/16/i-heard-you-the-first-time/ http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/16/i-heard-you-the-first-time/#comments Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:50:32 +0000 Dey Alexander http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/?p=38 It’s rarely a good idea to keep saying something over and over on a web page. Repeating information tends to bury it, rather than make it more visible.

Repeated information, Coles

Repeated information, Coles

On this page, the heading ‘Delivery to your door’ is hard to miss. It doesn’t need to be repeated two more times. Using a bulleted list to show the items you can get delivered is a better idea than saying it twice.

Bolding a whole sentence may not make it stand out. It might be better to put key words close to the left of the page, where most users look.

The image below shows what the page could look like.

My version of the Coles page

My version of the Coles page

]]> http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/16/i-heard-you-the-first-time/feed/ Student friendly? http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/15/student-friendly/ http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/15/student-friendly/#comments Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:07:01 +0000 Dey Alexander http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/?p=6 This page links to lists of subjects (’units’ in university-speak) available at Macquarie University. I wonder how much sense this makes to prospective students? It may be even worse for international students. Australian students will probably be able to make sense of things like ECON, POL and PHIL.

It’s probably not helping with search engine indexing either, since many search engines use the text in links to help index content.

Undergraduate units, Macquarie University

Undergraduate units, Macquarie University

It might be better to use the longer form, e.g.

  • Aboriginal early childhood (instead of ABEC)
  • Modern Greek (instead of MGK)
  • Environmental life sciences (instead of ELS).

Grouping the links by subject areas might help students find what they are looking for. Using sub-headings to label each area will give a bit of visual relief to the page as well.

]]> http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/15/student-friendly/feed/ More list problems http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/14/more-list-problems/ http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/14/more-list-problems/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:08:05 +0000 Dey Alexander http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/?p=28 Bulleted list, Q-Comp

Bulleted list, Q-Comp

Only yesterday I mentioned how important it is to design lists well. Here is another one from the Q-Comp site, where visibility of key information would be improved by moving the word “to” up to the end of the lead-in sentence.

]]> http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/14/more-list-problems/feed/ Writing effective lists http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/13/writing-effective-lists/ http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2008/10/13/writing-effective-lists/#comments Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:47:00 +0000 Dey Alexander http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/?p=18 Bulleted lists are a great way of showing information at a glance. We know web users move fairly quickly through pages, and lists can quickly bring key information to their attention. But only when they are well designed.

Bulleted list, Office of Economic and Statistical Research

Bulleted list, Office of Economic and Statistical Research

This list would be improved by removing the repeated words at the start of each item “the Queensland”. They could be added to the lead-in sentence instead.

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