161 Putting it in Writing Different types of visitors want different things from the web
pages they visit.
• Viewers stay on the page for no more than a few seconds. • Users want to do something (such as buying a product or registering for a web community) or find practical information. • Readers are willing to browse – and actually read what they find. Designing and writing web pages is a matter of satisfying as
many of these types of visitor as you can. It’s worth remembering
a slogan invented by one enterprising web-writer:
‘shut the door, they’re coming over the fence’. In other words, visitors to your
page could be coming from anywhere: a home page, a search
engine, or a link from another page in a completely different part
of cyberspace.
Chunking and stacking Chunk and stack your material to satisfy the needs of viewers,
users and readers. Chunking and stacking is a variation on
summarising and grouping, the structural technique discussed
earlier in this chapter.
• Chunking means breaking information into manageable, screen-sized pieces. • Stacking means grouping the chunks into categories. Chunking and stacking effectively layers the material so that
readers can see everything that is on the site easily and also go
into as much detail as they want.
Additionally, most web pages will benefit from these
features.
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162 Improve your Communication Skills • Create a heading that tells you where you are at once. • Write a message sentence . We’ve met messages before –
