Dear Colin,
Could I have a copy too please? ( your email address doesn't appear in your
email, so we can't email you offlist)
Rachel Cockett
System Administrator
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Chamberlain Square
B3 3DH
or
[log in to unmask]
Thank you,
Rachel
Susan Fell <[log in to unmask]> on 13/02/2003 10:26:40
Please respond to Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
cc: (bcc: Rachel Cockett/LeisureServices/BCC)
Subject: FW: Forget usability, try readability !
Dear Colin,
Please could you add my name to your mailing list for the
readability document. Thank you in anticipation,
Susan J Fell
Acting Keeper
Leicestershire County Council Heritage Services
Charnwood Museum
Granby Street
Loughborough
LE11 3DU
T: 01509 233737
-----Original Message-----
From: Wendy Sudbury [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 12 February 2003 18:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Forget usability, try readability !
I'd be very grateful for a copy of your readability document. I monitor a
number of projects where access is a big issue and am always trying to keep
up to date with the latest ideas. Thankyou.
Dr Wendy Sudbury
Director
Cambridge Management Group
47 Linhope Street
London NW1 6HL
Tel: +44 (0) 207 723 1627
Fax: +44 (0) 207 723 7077
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: Hynson, Colin
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 28 January 2003 10:12
Subject: Re: Forget usability, try readability !
Dear all,
I have produced a document/style sheet on producing readable text for
museum, library, archive websites. E-list etiquette means that I cannot
attach it to this message so if you would like a copy then please reply
to me off-list.
Colin Hynson
Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Freeman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 28 January 2003 09:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Forget usability, try readability !
Hi all,
Apologies to those that caught this on the e-learning list, and who
probably popped along for our meeting at the museum, but I feel it is
worth
repeating. As the educationalist for the NoF PortCities project, I spend
my
entire time working with authors to help them create readable and
understandable text and feel it is this element which is often ignored
(I
have expanded on this in an article in the Times Higher Educational
Supplement this friday).
With an average reading age of twelve in the UK population, I am fairly
confident that many people will have no idea what "facilitate
collaborative
working by researchers on our two digitisation projects" (extract from
www.historyshelf.org) actually means. If you mean the project is taking
pictures of paintings, drawings and pots from museums in East Lothian,
putting them on a website and involves people from all over the area
then
say so.
Many of the sites on www.enrichuk.net that are **launched** have issues
with their level of english used. The museum sector, in common with
academia, has fantastic content but sometimes produces material that
believe polysyllables equate to intelligence whereas often high syllable
words and complex language tend to hide meaning. Through my work, our
partners are now creating engaging and accessible content which is a
credit
to all involved.
Just my two penceworth,
Richard
Consortium Educationalist
Port Cities - National Maritime Museum
[log in to unmask]
******* Extract from e -learning list ****************
To sum up my methods in a short email is a tough task so here is a
summary
of useful pointers (I hope to expand on this at a future e-learning
group
meeting if possible on writing for the web).
Accessible language
-------------------
Hard to define but essentially this means writing for the average
reading
age of the UK which is 12. To do this, try and replace or remove high
syllable words. Place any specialist terms or jargon in a glossary.
Check
the reading age with various online tests (e.g.
http://www.timetabler.com/reading.html#4 on the Fry readability graph)
or
using the grammar checker in Word. Keep sentence structure short.
Front loaded paragraphs
-----------------------
Make sure the first paragraph of the material acts as an abstract and
tells
the whole story of the piece in brief. Make this as accessible as
possible
as this will be scanned by most people to see if they want to read the
remaining text.
Clear sections and sub-headings
-------------------------------
Divide the material up into clear sections that flow chronologically or
through the theme. Make sure sub-headings are detailed, almost in
sentence
form and explain what the paragraphs below will cover as people will use
these to jump around the content. Conclude the material with a paragraph
to
evaluate or analyse the material you have written.
Provide external and internal links
-----------------------------------
Make sure people can go further so while they are reading your material,
they could jump off and explore another site then return to your
material.
Also ensure that people can easily jump around the story by using the
sub-
headings to build the navigation. Links to other material on your site
are
great to provide as they will then retain visitors.
Create a style guide
---------------------
A style guide is a useful tool to add to as you progress to record how
you
want the text to be written. For example, are you going to write
nineteenth
century or 19th century ? Put in a word list of common phrases that
could
be spelt incorrectly or misunderstood by authors. Check out The
Economist's
guide (http://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/index.cfm) and their
quiz or the Guardian's guide
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/0,5817,,00.html) for examples of
what
I mean.
If anyone would like to hear more about the PortCities project or
writing
for the web more specifically, I will be organising a group meeting to
share my experiences and hopefully learn more from all the members on
the
list. As soon as I have a date, I will post another message to the list.
Yours,
Richard Freeman
--------------------------------------
|Consortium Educationalist |
|Port Cities - National Maritime Museum|
|E - [log in to unmask] |
|T - 0208 312 6504 |
|F - 0870 132 0240 |
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