Here is the second half of the article where we look at some more tips to make our text more attractive to your readers.
Breaking up lengthy text
As for the main body of text - paragraph lengths mustn’t exceed about five lines in depth when presented 8 - 10 words wide. To avoid visual repetition, paragraphs need to vary in length.
Long text needs to be broken up. So use: subheads, bulleted and numbered lists, indentation, pulled quotes, supporting pictures and tabular material. Break the text into multiple linked pages with good linking navigation.
Click on this image to see how a web page can be broken up
If a picture is embedded in a paragraph of text then the copy may need to be shortened to accommodate it.
Just as every web designer should understand how to write for the web - every writer needs to apply these basic design principles to their finished text to make it more attractive for the reader. They also need to preview their text on the web page - and do a final sub to improve its appearance.
Avoid liquid page design
For text to look good and read well it should ideally be about 65 characters wide. If the reader is allowed to adjust the width of the text in the browser then they may unconsciously reduce the readability of that material by increasing paragraph depth.
Click on this image to see how liquid text affects readability
‘Liquid page layout design’ is used by some designers to allow text to reflow for different screen sizes, the reason usually given is ‘for improved accessibility’.
But ‘other screen sizes’ are in the minority. And we are compromising the readability and ‘look and feel’ and accessibility for the majority. Delivering material for alternative screen sizes, or for the visually impaired can be handled in other ways, including style sheets.
Text needs to be delivered in fixed width. It needs to be designed from the outset to look good.
Would the painter Constable have been happy if he knew that his artwork might one day be viewed on a magic box that could stretch or squash his work of art from 4:3 to 14:9 to zoom to wide? Probably not. So don’t allow the reader to spoil your web work of art!
Text that lets you down
Occasionally when I have been judging websites I have been immediately impressed by the layout of text and the design of a website. I am drawn to read it. For a moment I think ‘maybe there is a winner here’. But on reading it I find the text is full of ponderous long complex sentences, using management ‘peacock’ words. What a pity!
Click on this image to see some web page examples
Strangely, good text layout really can help to make poorly written text more palatable. But it can be a very short step to make the text readable as well.
How frustrating it must be for you the designer for your great looking page to be compromised in this way. Have you ever considered the possibility of learning how to write for the web so you can sub poor text?
If you want to learn more about the relationship between writing, usability and text design there are many more tips in my elearning course.
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