On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

There is also an interesting chart that shows the average amount of time users spend on a site based on the word count. Very fascinating, yet scary at the same time because if it’s your site, you have to wonder if you’re getting users the information they need, quickly.

Two tips I have when you’re writing for the web. One being to think like your user. Read your own copy and think if you’re conveying the right information. If it’s fluff copy and/or marketing talk, remove it. Users know what is fluff, and what is relevant to them. Second tip, get to the point, and fast. Be clear and concise. If your copy isn’t to the point, your user might not read it……then why have it there?

It is a must to know how to write for the web. If you haven’t been trained, then learn how to, it’s really not that tough. And study how users are actually using your site.

Update: Andy Rutledge has a different take on the article linked above. He raises good points as well. My opinions remain the same. You still need to know how to write for the web, designing that copy is a different issue.

I didn’t have any major goals for this site when I first started. I just told myself that I would write as well as I could, and write consistently, both which I think I have done a decent job on. So going into this new year, I don’t plan on changing much at all, except trying to become a better writer.

Most people like to do new years resolutions, however, I’ve never been big on the resolutions. I do, however, have a few things that I am looking forward to, and want, in this new year that I would like to briefly address:

A Redesign

As much as I like the current design of this site, I highly doubt that it will make it all the way through 2007. And since this is my design playground, I plan on doing at least one redesign. So when that happens, I will be going through my design process again, naming my inspiration, and so forth.

SXSW

I’ve never been to a conference before, so I am extremely geeked about having the chance to attend SXSW this year. I look forward to meeting some of my favorite bloggers and “celebrity” designers that I’ve looked up to since I began this whole design thing. And if you are going let me know!

Writing More In Depth

Like I already mentioned, I was pretty satisfied with my writing since I started this blog, however, I would like to maybe do some more in depth posts about design aspects and techniques. Writing some design critiques might be an interesting exercise as well. Never-the-less, I would like dig a little deeper into design and development more, to not only pick my brain, but the hopefully people that read here as well.

New Design

I am really interested in seeing some show stopping designs this year. I hope to see some people be the trend setters and come up with new ways to layout a page, or use new techniques to code. Maybe I could even do this!

More Apple!

I bought my first Apple machine in 2006, and ever since, I just can’t get enough. I hope Apple has an even better year than last and I will continue being a fanboy loyal customer! I especially look forward to using the new Leopard OS that will be releasing not too long from now.

Learn, Learn, Learn

You can never be the best you can be if you stop learning. I’d like to learn something new this year. My solid skill set contains photoshop, XHTML, and CSS. I’d like to go further and maybe learn more php, xml, or something along those lines. Of course one can only master so many traits, but knowing how things work at least is never bad.

So those are some things that I am looking forward to for 2007. Aside from the things above, I am expecting some huge things to happen, which I will discuss when they come up. So thanks for reading through 2006 and I hope you stick around for this brand new year.

What are you looking forward to for the big 007?

This past weekend, me and couple business partners had a three-hour jam session on writing up content for our soon-to-be company website. Now, if you were to see the document, you would wonder why it took so long to write up so little. Well, when writing for the web, it’s pretty important to make things as clear and concise as possible, but that’s not the only thing.

Our process for writing this content went page by page. We would each type out our thoughts, then bring them together for every bit of content. What was essential, was that every single sentence we wrote, we made sure that it would make sense to your average person. We didn’t even bother throwing in terms like XHTML, CSS, AJAX, etc.

Why? Well, who really cares what that stuff is, if they have no idea what it means? That’s the easy way out. Challenge yourself and communicate what you do in a human sense. To put it another way, imagine you want a house built, and you look for different companies. The tools and terms they use won’t really mean much to you. You just want to know that they can do a good job. Well, the web is no different.

In a recent article from Vitamin on communication web 2.0 through design. Now they do talk about it from a design standpoint, however, this easily breaks down into the writing, which you will notice.

So, talking to that next potential client, or writing content for a site, remember to go through that content and make sure that your average person (outside of your industry) can get an understanding of what it is you are trying to say. Why even risk scaring away a user because they can’t understand your jargon? Content always comes first, but how you write that content is just as important. Put yourself in the users’ seat, and every sentence ask yourself “would this make sense to everyone else?”