Writing for Visual Effect

Immediacy
Permanence
Capacity
Flexibility
Interactivity
Mobility
• SCANNER not reader
• They READ, WRITE & INTERACT
• Non-linear story
• Creating content
• Useful, current, contextual
• Accuracy, clarity, conciseness, flexibility
• News is not product, news is conversation
• Create SCANNABLE page & text
• A screen full of text will drive away the readers
• So, writing for web requires a proper
knowledge of PERSENTAITON –
• By SCANNABLE TEXT, we mean -
• SPACING between paragraphs –
• BULLETED or NUMBERED lists –
 • INDENTIONS –

INDENTION
TEXT
PULL QUOTES
COLOURED TEXT
GRAPHIC INTEGRATION
 MICRO-CONTENT
• Headline
• Summary
• Subheads
• Cutline/Captions: One/two sentences. Can be longer as
required. Present tense. Describe the action. Identify
the people. Photo credit with date.
• Labels: One/two words creating the group. E.g. ‘news’,
‘sports’, ‘arts’ etc.
• Tags/Keywords: major related words/phrases, at least
5-8 is better.. Helps in SEO and organizing articles.
• Links
 WEB PAGE
• Do not use long scroll
• Break longer story into different web pages
with page number links
• Do not use multiple colours in a single page
• 2/4 types of fonts at max.
• Contrasting background-text-photo frame
colour.
 WEB PAGE

• Default background color – white

• Popular background color – blue
• Gallery like appeal – black
• Each color has its own appeal
• Following are the web-safe colours -
 F-shape Web Pages
• Users first read in a horizontal movement,
usually across the upper part of the content
area. This initial element forms the F's top bar.
 F-shape Web Pages
• Next, users move down the page a bit and
then read across in a second horizontal
movement that typically covers a shorter area
than the previous movement. This additional
element forms the F's lower bar.
 F-shape Web Pages
• Finally, users scan the content's left side in
a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a
fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as
a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap.
Other times users move faster, creating a
spottier heatmap. This last element forms the
F's stem.
The F pattern's implications for Web design are clear and
show the importance of following the guidelines for
writing for the Web instead of repurposing print content:

• Users won't read your text thoroughly in a word-by-

word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially
when prospective customers are conducting their
initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes,
some people will read more, but most won't.
• The first two paragraphs must state the most
important information. There's some hope that users
will actually read this material, though they'll probably
read more of the first paragraph than the second.
• Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with
information-carrying words that users will notice
when scanning down the left side of your content in
the final stem of their F-behavior. They'll read the third
word on a line much less often than the first two
words.
 3 Fundamental Principles: Visual
Language
• Organize: provide the user with a clear and
consistent conceptual structure. Consistency,
screen layout, relationships and navigability
are important concepts of organization. The
same conventions and rules should be applied
to all elements.
 3 Fundamental Principles: Visual
Language
• Economize: do the most with the least amount
of cues and visual elements. Four major points to
be considered:
– Simplicity includes only the elements that are most
important for communication.
– Clarity: all components should be designed so their
meaning is not ambiguous.
– Distinctiveness: the important properties of the
necessary elements should be distinguishable.
– Emphasis: the most important elements should be
easily perceived.
 3 Fundamental Principles: Visual
Language

• Communicate: match the presentation to the

capabilities of the user. The user interface must
keep in balance legibility, readability, typography,
symbolism, multiple views, and color or texture
in order to communicate successfully. Use max. 3
typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes — a
maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per
line of text.