It makes me really upset when I visit a government website and find it written in dense technical or bureaucratic language. I can appreciate the desire of public servants to be precise and accurate in their choice of words, but often the language chosen is incomprehensible to people without two degrees and ten years experience…
Twitter has emerged as a significant channel for breaking news, announcement and discussions on political, social, environmental and commercial topics. Over the last three years the service has grown to over 25 million users globally, including many senior business, political and entertainment figures. In fact it’s been the fastest growing online channel, with over 750%…
Today I welcome a post from guest blogger Cheryl Hardy, of the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (DIIRD), State Government of Victoria, Victoria, Australia. Cheryl manages eGovernment Research in DIIRD and is a prime operative behind the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre, which was one of the global top ten nominees for the World…
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen in government websites is excessive use of words. Government agencies often treat each website page as a stand-alone fact sheet. This means they err on the side on completeness, leading to wordiness. Most of us have seen the research. People don’t read wordy, jargon-filled pages – they skim….
This is a great Alertbox article from usability guru Jakob Neilsen regarding writing for the web versus the print medium…. Writing Style for Print vs. Web In summary: I’ve spent many columns explicating the differences between the Web and television, which can be summarized as lean-forward vs. lean-back: On the Web, users are engaged and…
Here’s a great presentation from Donna Spencer (formerly Donna Maurer) discussing how to get content right. http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/2008/web-directions-ux-getting-content-right The key things she picks on are: The reader is important – you’re not Really think about what the reader wants to know Write as you speak – with a real voice Use images as well as words…
I’ve never liked the term Web 2.0, but it’s become established as the ‘in term’ for websites involving more than flat pages and information. These days everyone wants to be seen to be doing Web 2.0 – even when they are not. But what really IS Web 2.0? What separates the sites that are really…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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