Writing for the Web

Page titles – should be unique and clearly describe the topic or purpose of the page. Avoid question marks and abbreviations. Titles should be written in Title Case. This means only using capital letters for the principal words. Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions do not get capital letters unless they start the title. For example:
- Welcome to Personal and Professional Development
Use headings and subheadings to create sections of a page. Do not just insert bold text as a heading.
Content – Write as concisely as possible.
Never use ALL CAPS to highlight text. Instead use bold font if you need to highlight body text.
Avoid using underlining as a method of attracting attention – it is not only difficult for dyslexic users but can also be confused with links.
Use short sentences and paragraphs.
Be consistent in your use of grammar and punctuation.

Images

Avoid using images m just to make your page ‘look pretty’.

Not everyone can see images on a web page. People using screen readers may not be able to physically see an image, but they can access textual information about the image instead. You should provide a text description for each image you add to your web pages. The description must convey the same information as the image so if your image contains the words “Information for Prospective and Current Students” the text description should contain the same words.

MedLearn WordPress CMS allows you to enter an image’s text description by editing an image’s ‘title’ field.

Images must be free of copyright or been granted permission for use.
Use Alternative text for images to provide an alternative way of conveying the information provided by an image.
Do not use animated images
Images should be optimised for the web. Aim to keep your images less than 1MB in size.

Videos

In order to provide better access to videos you need to make sure to provide a transcript or captions for the audio.

People who are blind or have low vision will lose any information that’s only conveyed visually in a video file, and require audio description to make the video fully accessible.

Lists

Lists are an excellent way to break up text and help to keep people interested in your page. Lists make content clearer, easier to scan and easier for readers to identify important information. However, too many lists can disrupt the flow of content on a page. Lists should only be used to group two or more items of similar content.

Bulleted Lists
Bulleted lists are the most common type of lists used on web pages and the type of list you will probably use more often. You should use this type of list for content that does not have a specific order.
Ordered Lists
If you are adding a list to your page that has a specific order you should use an ordered list. Ordered lists can be preceded with numbers, letters or roman numerals

Headings

Use formatted headings. Headings should have larger font size and heavier font weight than paragraph text so they are visually distinct from the paragraphs. The formatted headings and visual hierarchy helps people with low vision and screen readers go through the content effectively.

Paragraphs

It is important to use paragraphs when writing your web copy, as too much text in one block can be difficult to read online. Short, succinct paragraphs of roughly 60 words will make it easier for many people to read and enjoy the content on your pages. You should front load paragraphs by putting key points at the start of them.

Tables

Tables should only be used for displaying data and should not be used to create different ways of laying out page content.

Links

Make sure all the links work.
Use descriptive text for hyperlinks (do not write URLs on the page).

Make links phrases clear and concise as it will help users understand which page they will reach when following a link on a page. Write meaningful link phrases. Avoid using general terminology such as “click here”, “more information” and “read more”.