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Ask HN: Resource for writing text for web applications?

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Ask HN: Resource for writing text for web applications?

#1

Post by Bookington »

Does anyone have a good resource for writing for web applications? I'm talking about the help text strings, error messages, etc. I'm just wondering about best practices and best phrasing:

E.g., "Successfully purchased product" versus "You have successfully purchased this product" for a confirmation message.

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Resource for writing text for web applications?

#3

Post by eivarv »

IIRC, Shneiderman and Plaisant touch upon this somewhere in their book "Designing the User Interface" [0], and Schneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" [1] may also be applicable. You might additionally want to look into resources that deal with copywriting.

[0]: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Designing-User-Interface-Internation...

[1]: https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/goldenrules.html

Re: Ask HN: Resource for writing text for web applications?

#4

Post by bzalasky »

You should read The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane. It's from A Book Apart. As for shorter display copy, starting with a simple, clean writing style is a great start. From there, validate the assumptions you make with your initial copy. You can use tools like Kissmetrics or Optimizely to test how successful different approaches are.
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