Web Style Guides

As I began reading the web style guides I felt that I was returning to the wisdom of Strunk and White. Like the Strunk and Whites The Element's of Style, “Spider Pros Dos and Don'ts” agrees that when writing content it is also best to keep it simple, and cut out the needless information. Just as Strunk and White repeated the necessity to “omit needless words.” Similarly Spider pro's also suggest getting to your point right away and not leaving the reader in suspense over what needs to be said. Again experts could not dispute this wisdom.

The web is different from that of a book, however, and because of that there are rules that are specific to this medium. Things like keeping only one topic to a page, and using implicit text for your links something like click here becomes very important. Similarly I do not recall any of the other style guides suggesting that we look at feedback from our audience. This is something that is available on the web and is not as easy to come by for other forms of published writing. Like wise the web style guides must focus on issues such as colors and images, where as the other guides were only concerned with the words which were written. Though like with words when it comes to colors and images the advice stays the same keep it simple. For images the reasoning is largely to not slow down the cite, and the colors should not distract from what you are trying to convey. With web sites there is also an opportunity to add not just still images but multi media as well including sound as well as video clips and other moving pictures. These are areas which Strunk and White, nor Williams could have included in that they go beyond the written words capabilities to include in a place other than on the web. Despite the medium specific rules, the idea of remaining clear and concise remains as mentioned in the more traditional style guide we have read earlier, and I have referred to in earlier blogs.

There are so many similarities in the way in which style stays the same for the written word. The advent of the Internet has not changed the immediate model. As Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton are quick to point out in their web guide Planning is extremely important. They point out that web planning is largely a six part process including:

1. Site definition and planning

2. Information architecture

3. Site design

4. Site construction

5. Site marketing

6. Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

Writing too is a process, but with writing there is an end point to the process. With websites the process continues and changes until the site closes all together, there is no real end time. The sites themselves continue to need attention. Hence why we are able to gather information to improve the sites from our audiences.

While the style rules we have read about and discussed earlier in the course still seem to apply there are so many other ones which are more exclusive to this medium. Including the need to work with not just words to convey a message, but images as well.