Slides from a short talk at The Big Redux, local IxDA conference, Maryland, April 2011. Based on my book on writing for the web, Letting Go of the Words -- Writing Web Content that Works

1. Content as Conversation Janice (Ginny) Redish, Ph.D. Redish & Associates, Inc. Bethesda, Maryland 301 − 229 − 3039 [email_address] www.redish.net Silver Spring, MD April 30, 2011

3. Navigation and search are critical

4. Good, clear design is critical

5. Technology that works is critical

6. But they all support the content

7. Content = conversation

10. Imagine the conversation as you design Which link should we click on? Flickr cc photo by Mr.Thomas

11. http://www.tricare.mil/

12. Old CDC page; CDC has revised this and most other health information, following the content as conversation model.

13. http://familydoctor.org Don't hog the conversation. Take turns Headings are the site visitor's turns in the conversation.

15. Did you say something like this? If you are importing yams, [someone] must fumigate them when they arrive at the port of entry. To fumigate yams, [someone] must use this procedure: Clark and Haviland, Comprehension and the given-new contract, In R. Freedle (Ed.), Discourse production and comprehension , 1975, Erlbaum, 1-40. Set the context first new context = given, known then

16. Answer your site visitors' questions Flickr photo by pedrosimeos7 Oh! I think I like that bag, but I wonder…

18. Talk to your site visitors

22. Think "conversation." Write conversations. Facilitate conversations. Evaluate through conversations. ✔ ✗

23. Morgan Kaufmann / Elsevier, 2007 Ginny Redish [email_address] 301 229 3039 Thank you