Make It Scannable
Use appropriate headings, bold text, and lists to mark important information. The crew at 37 Signals execute this really well – and even explain how they test the effectiveness of this via their Signal vs. Noise blog.

Go Above The Fold
Put your best material “above the fold” – that is, within the top part of the page the user sees before scrolling downwards. It’s your best chance of getting your user’s attention.

Link Meaningfully
Instead of adding a link that says “click here“, use a descriptive one like Lance Armstrong’s Bike Shop. It improves the readability and the quality of search engine indexing for your site and the destination site.

Encourage Exploration
Explain your content as best you can with the limited space you have but provide links to related sites where more extensive information is available. This way, you won’t lose your users attention, and you’ll be noted as a source of valuable referrals.

Size Matters
Keep your paragraphs small, have one idea per paragraph and make sure the opening sentence outlines the idea. Large chunks of text deter the reader.

Introduce these rules into your online writing and see how you go.

Web users don’t read, at least not in the same way as if reading a book or newspaper.

According to web usability expert Jakob Nielsen, web users scan the page, looking for words and headings that are relevant to them. On the web, less is better in terms of words, but they need to be targeted to the audience.

Popular business marketing guru Seth Godin writes in one blog post  “If you’re writing for strangers, make it shorter” which pretty much sums up the concept of writing on the web. This is where careful selection of headings and keywords is beneficial, not only from a reading point of view, but also in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) – that is, making the content of your site clear for search engines like Google and Yahoo to see.

In fact, whilst reading some of Nielsen’s work, I found myself scanning through the content and predominantly reading just the headings, bold content, and lists until I came across something of particular interest. Nielsen states “On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely”. Probably about right in my case.

What would you think if someone walked up to you and said “I own a building supplies yard, how about you help yourself to the materials and build whatever you can dream of”?

In the case of the Internet, that is exactly what has happened, and it is exactly why I love the whole concept.

HTML is one form of ‘material’ you have at your disposal. All you need is access to a computer connected to the Internet and a basic knowledge of HTML and you can start building!

The whole idea of being able to create something real from materials whose supply is infinite (code written by you) is what excites web designers and developers around the globe. Flickr, Digg, Facebook - they were all dreamed up and then written using the languages available to all of us. The speed at which web applications are being created and updated is largely due to the low barriers to entering the marketplace, relative to offline business.

I’ve done just as explained above – built something I thought of – and have a few more ideas in the pipeline.

As my HTML example (although it also uses a few more web technologies – which I will explain further) I put forward Eventlist.com.au – a website I’ve built which is an Australian Triathlon and Multisport Event Calendar. It’s targeted at Australian athletes who participate in endurance sporting events around the country. I’ve also created a sister site for our kiwi friends – Eventlist.co.nz.

A site I have created for Australian athletes.

My site uses several web technologies:

• HTML
• CSS
• Javascript
• PHP
• MySQL

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is used primarily to provide the structure of the site. I have used “div” elements to lay the foundations of each page. As Lachlan Hunt explains in his article “A Preview of HTML 5” for web design site A List Apart, we use “div” elements to structure each page because HTML 4 lacks the ability to semanticly define page structure.

However, this may be a worthy reason for updating the sites code to HTML5, which allows for elements such as “header”, “nav” (for navigation), “section”, “article”, “aside”, and “footer”, eliminating the need to use classes or id references to identify structural elements.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is used extensively to define the style of elements throughout the site. When CSS gained popularity it spawned a creative following that sought to take the artistic style to the web, lighting up what was once a pretty ugly scene. A few of my favourite CSS gallery sites are CSS Zen Garden, CSS Beauty, and CSS Drive.

Javascript is used to do some of the “behind the scenes” work like validating user input, hiding tables of data that must not be visible at a particular time, and occasionally swapping an image when a user rolls the mouse over it.

The whole site however, is run using PHP & MySQL. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a server side programming language which allows you to make dynamic web pages. PHP enhances your HTML code by adding a dynamic element to it, so that the user experiences something that is custom made for them. In the case of my website, when a user searches for an event such as a triathlon, they are presented with a list of search results which have been dynamically created by a PHP script. That script involved querying a MySQL database, checking for all database entries that match the search criteria, and then printing those search results on the screen in the form of HTML. So PHP is basically a way of publishing HTML with an added bit of spice (or interaction).

All in all, HTML is a language that is basic enough to learn in a couple of hours but holds such power that the majority of the Internet as we know it, has been written using it. The difference between much of this HTML is how it has been created.

Since the volume of individual publishers has grown, so too have the number of ways in which you can publish. Hand-crafted HTML is rare, but popular among professional web designers. Mainstream blog software produces the HTML for you, so you don’t have to worry about it. Adding a comment on a blog or news site requires just your own words, the HTML form will write the HTML for you.

As stated earlier, all you need is access to a computer connected to the Internet and a basic knowledge of HTML and you can start building!

Chat services and Instant Messaging (IM) online are two tools which really opened up communications online when they were introduced. They gave the internet a widespread sense of real time communication.

I’ve tried a couple of IM applications – ICQ and MSN Messenger – as well as Facebook chat which isn’t a standalone application but works along the same principles. I’ve had a brief try of SecondLife but there is enough going on in the “real world” for me to avoid the temptation of diving deep into the “virtual world”!

One of the organised NET11 group chats on ICQ was great but unfortunately I had some troubles with ICQ, not being able to view the conversation in real time, instead I had to view the conversation history which lessened my ability to participate. It was probably something I was doing wrong, but I’ll figure it out at a later time.

I have to admit I’m not a big user of IM, but if I do need to jump on, my first choice is usually MSN Messenger. It hooks up to my Hotmail email account and includes all of my contacts from there. It appears quite similiar to ICQ in the way the user interface is used during IM, as I imagine most probably do.

Facebook Chat is a great little feature built into Facebook itself so rather than requiring a separate installation, the chat happens within your own web browser. Regardless of your operating system you can chat with your friends.

As with most IM applications, the status indicator comes in very handy at times. For example, I regularly log on with my status set to show me “Offline” so I can get my work done but also see who is online in case I need to chat with them. This helps productivity but also means you can jump into an IM conversation if required. A brilliant feature!

Online chat provides the ability to chat via text, video or audio with other users however it adds new dimensions to the web. For example, the use of emoticons (little animated smiley faces, etc) can indicate various emotions. Text characters can also be used to intimate nonverbal communication in a similiar way that body language would in a face to face conversation. This paper from The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand – An analysis of nonverbal communication in an online chat group – investigates some of the nonverbal communication that occur in online chat.

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

Due to the various operating systems, platforms and software applications that could potentially be used to open an attachment you have sent, it is necessary to take the following precautions in order to maximise the chances of the recipient being able to open the file/s.

The attachment encoding should be set to MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) which is a default setting in most modern email applications when sending attachments.

The file format being attached is another issue to be considered. Issues can arise when there are differences in the sender and recipient’s:

• – Computing platform (eg. Windows vs. Mac, Linux vs. Windows)
• – Software Applications (eg. MS Word vs. OpenOffice)
• – Character Encoding (Language Differences)

A common non-compatibility example is Microsoft’s OpenXML format, identifiable by the relatively new file extensions (”.docx”, “.xlsx”, “.pptx”). Users of older Microsoft Office applications must update their software to be able to open these newer documents, and in some cases, where a Mac user is concerned (using some versions of Mac OS 10.4 or earlier), the files cannot be opened at all. In this situation, it may be a smart move to convert the document to PDF format prior to sending, since PDF reading applications (most notably Adobe Reader) are commonly pre-installed on modern computers.

The audience (your recipients) must be taken into account when sending attachments. Are they experienced computer users? Are there any cultural differences with regards to the appropriateness of the attachment? Are they likely to have the software required to read the attached file/s? It is a good idea to attach files the recipient is likely to be familiar with as this will most likely improve the chances that they will actually open the file.

4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?

Since the email account I have set up is specifically for this exercise, I have created a rule as an example, which sorts any incoming mail from the Gmail admin team (basically any sender with a “google.com” domain) into a folder labeled “Gmail Admin Messages”. Of course, as further needs arise I can create more of these rules. I love this feature of Outlook!

Some of the Rule options available in Outlook 2007

5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

My test email account is very basic – however I have organised one of my other personal email accounts with a folder setup that helps improve my email handling efficiency. As an example, it is setup with folders such as “Travel”, “Receipts”, and several folders related to services I regularly receive email from such as traffic tolls, internet service provider, frequent flyer account, and so on. With these folders I can quickly file away statements and newsletters and know exactly where to find that information should it be required in the future. If I needed to run a search, I could quickly drill down to this folder level, rather than search through the whole account.