Ask HN: Resource for writing text for web applications?

8 points by Bookington 11y ago ↗ HN

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!

4 comments

[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 12.3 ms ] thread

dorfuss 11y ago ↗

Super idea for a side project! Thanks!

eivarv 11y ago ↗

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

bzalasky 11y ago ↗

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.

[deleted] 11y ago ↗

(comment deleted)