From Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox newsletter, some interesting research on website readability: Break Grammar Rules on Websites for Clarity — and Part Two.
Some of these rules you should be breaking almost any time you’re communicating with donors in any medium. A couple freak me out a bit.
But consider them:
- Rule to break #1: Never use sentence fragments
- Rule to break #2: Spell out small numbers
- Rule to break #3: Paragraphs should contain 3–5 sentences
- Rule to break #4: Avoid Using the Word Very
- Rule to break #5: Use Exclamation Points Judiciously
- Rule to break #6: Avoid Using Chat Abbreviations in Website Content
- Rule to break #4: Avoid Using the Word Very
What a relief! Those last three were an April Fools’ joke! Let’s just say almost anything is believable when it comes to online communications.
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.
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