SmyWord is on holiday

(Original photo by Donald Macleod on Flickr).

No charge for the photo: marketing Cambridge’s biggest landlord

How many properties do you think the biggest landlord in Cambridge owns? 20? 50? 100? Amazingly, having bought his first home in 1965, Dennis Whitfield has accumulated a portfolio of over 500 properties in the area. That’s a lot of houses.

The Whitfield Group are a genuine, local success story. The only thing they didn’t have in place was a useful presence on the web so they approached us at Endis Solutions asking for a simple site to advertise their services and empty properties.

The challenges from the content side:

• Appealing to different markets, professional and student
• Helping Whitfield to raise their game with photos and copy for the property descriptions
• Finding a unique sales message in a very crowded market
• SEO, in an even more crowded market

To appeal distinctly to their two main types of tenant, we gave them a site each: Whitfield Residential and Whitfield Students. We wrote the student site in a chatty tone, replete with puns. The message is: no agents means fewer fees, plus it’s perfect for Anglia Ruskin University.

The Residential site does not joke around but we kept the collar loose. The selling point is simplicity. For a long time I had ‘the uncomplicated way to rent’ as the strapline, but had to concede, based in part on cognitive fluency, that simple was simpler than uncomplicated.

We also put an umbrella page up at their old address to build on the search engine ranking. This has worked well: on UK Google searching for ‘Whitfield’ returns over 9 million results. Our man is number one.

Googling ‘Whitfield’ returns over 9 million results. Our man is number one.

As for helping their staff to create compelling property pages, I wrote them a style guide for descriptions as well as a guide to taking photos with their specific (and somewhat lower end) model cameras. Remember the blog post? A bonus was giving a photo of my own – a quick snap during my son’s nursery’s annual float down the River Cam – to our designer, who turned it into an image for the front page. Whitfield have since adopted it for their wider branding.

We are hopefully about to do another raft of work for Whitfield, adding some advanced features to the sites. But in this first stage it was a pleasure to focus on creating something simple, well executed and with a clear message.

Uncomplicated, even.

How to loosen the collar of your web copy

Social media has made the web more of a conversation (it was already pretty chatty). Companies who want to maintain a one-sided, sales pitch relationship with their customers come off as stiffs. For many businesses with web sites, adopting a tone of voice online that is a little less formal, a little more smart casual, will help their users to connect with them.

I am not talking about LOL-ing up your copy with txtspk, slang and swearwords FTW! But undoing the top button and taking off the tie will allow you to appear friendly, trustworthy, approachable and willing to interact. Here are 9 practical tips to soften up your style:

1. Use contractions

‘From a standing start back in 1998, we’ve grown into a successful online bank. We’ve done this by helping customers to understand and manage their money more effectively.’ Egg

We’ve is a contraction (of we have). Formal training says that you should not contract words in proper writing. That’s something to bear in mind the next time you write to a judge, but for describing your company or service online, this, along with point 2, is the most important trick for creating a more relatable style.

2. Be a person or group of people

‘We’ve been asked by a lot of people how we’ve grown so quickly, and the answer is actually really simple… We’ve aligned the entire organization around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible.’ Zappos

Technically this is about person: write in the first person (I, we) rather than the third (Zappos believes…). It is important to mention your company name occasionally, which you can do by saying ‘At Zappos, we…’, but overall the more it is about we and us the more human you will appear.

3. Embrace fragments

‘For years project management software was about charts, graphs, and stats. And you know what? It didn’t work.’ Basecamp

Fragments, bless them, haven’t quite got enough parts of speech to be called real sentences. Who cares? (Hey, there’s one). We speak in fragments all the time, and dropping them occasionally into our copy creates a natural voice.

4. Put in a single line paragraph

‘It’s my favourite place in the world.’ Seven Holidays

I love this bad boy. Just as your reader is following your thoughtful argument through well-constructed paragraphs you hit them with a single line like a poke in the eye. Don’t use it more than once on a page.

5. Use simple words

‘Twitter is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.’

Search for twitter in Google and this is what appears as Twitter’s own description of itself. Compare with Wikipedia’s description on the same page: ‘Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., that enables its users to send and read other user messages’.

Remember that you are not just conveying information, but personality. As soon as you begin sounding like the dictionary, you’re not being taken to the party any more.

6. Go casual with your phrases and metaphors

‘Hello. We are Ryan, Nick and Sam. A while back we got interested in the idea of lending. Sam had had a good experience with his next-door neighbours. They had been lending stuff to him – small stuff mainly (like a cup of sugar), but it got bigger (like a ladder) and in time he found he was actually hanging out with his neighbours who turned out to be quite surprisingly nice once he got to know them.’ Streetbank

This is a particularly casual way of talking about your organisation. Note the parentheses, like little vocal asides, and the otherwise woolly words like stuff, hanging out and quite surprisingly nice. How casual your company should sound is up to you. But one of the traits for cultivating a more relaxed tone of voice is the use of lazy phrases and metaphors.

Catch my drift?

7. Share a little joke

‘Can I be banned from commenting? Yes, if your comments are self-promotional, obnoxious, highly offensive, spam, or even worse, boring. There will be no warning, and little mercy.’ Gawker

Don’t force it, and don’t try to have your users in stitches. But a friendly joke or a bit of irony used sparingly and at appropriate moments – such as to relieve the tension of a long form or error page – goes a long way to make your company seem approachable.

8. Cut out the company blah bits

‘A large, high-resolution LED-backlit IPS display. An incredibly responsive Multi-Touch screen. And an amazingly powerful Apple-designed chip. All in a design that’s thin and light enough to take anywhere. iPad isn’t just the best device of its kind. It’s a whole new kind of device.’ Apple (UK)

Apple could tell you many things about their philosophy, values and marketing principles. Instead, they show you what you are looking for.

However informal you try to make it sound there is still something stuffy about ‘our core values’ and ‘we believe’ and ‘our history’ and ‘our mission statement’. Customers do not care. They will infer all that from your products and service anyway. What you choose to tell them is another essential constituent of your tone.

9. Start sentences with conjunctions

‘But here we are 24 months later and those predictions couldn’t appear more misplaced […] So occasionally at The World Tonight, we decide to devote special coverage to a significant issue and this Friday it’s this.’ BBC News, The Editors

To round off the generally-chill-out-about-grammar theme: start the occasional sentence with or, and or but.

In a word: conversational

Overall, instead of writing like you are providing a legal defence for your company, write like you are chatting to individual customers in person. Talk like you’re, well, talking. Read your copy to yourself in the mirror and try not to laugh.

How informal you get is up to you (I recommend keeping the shirt on). You could create a style guide to maintain the level that you want. But I hope that these practical tips help you to find ways to undo at least the top button, and write like you are human after all.

What other companies have a great informal tone of voice? Have you any other tips for developing a more relaxed style?

My 2-year-old eats iPlayer for breakfast

The other morning I came downstairs to find my 2-year-old already up, watching his favourite programme on the Internet. Nothing remarkable in that per se, except that he was alone. And I had shut the computer down the night before.

This isn’t about how smart my child is (although he can complete a Cat-in-a-Hat jigsaw in under 5 minutes reverse-side up and calculate the exact opposite of everything we ask him to do instantaneously, before implementing it without flaw).

No, the point is that in iPlayer the BBC have designed a web site so easy to use that a 2-year-old can master it.

After turning the computer on he clicks the browser icon and iPlayer opens as the homepage. From there, he clicks on an image that he recognises – perhaps Charlie, Lola or Mister Tumble – or on one that looks like it’s for kids.

Admittedly, the homepage is set to the Children’s page. But I’ve seen him get there from the front page too, by clicking on ‘Last Played’ or one of the many pictures in ‘Highlights’ or ‘Most Popular’.

Once one kids’ programme is open, he skips through a chain of large thumbnails displayed below in ‘More’ and ‘Recommendations’ until it brings up something appealing. Then he clicks the play and full screen icons, and kicks back with a little bowl of whatever he found at toddler height in the cupboard (dry noodles, honey, an unripe plum, that sort of thing).

How easy is that?

Elements of toddler-friendly design

iPlayer is doing something right that children as young as two are able to operate it. This is not news. But that someone so young should be comfortable navigating a web site made me wonder what design elements enabled his success. Here are some of my suspicions:

1) Navigation is image-based

My son can’t read a word. Not a single word. He gets the content he wants by clicking on the pictures. An adult might take shortcuts by reading the text – find the right episode straight away or employ the search box – but a preliterate child can get to the same place in time purely by clicking on pictures.

2) Images have good affordance

It is not just that the menus are images, but that the pictures are instantly recognisable (a character he has seen before) or representative (something that looks like it is for children). This provides the simple experience of seeing what you want and clicking on it to get it, otherwise known as show don’t tell.

3) Many points of entry into content and many routes between

Searching iPlayer my son rarely gets stuck. There are always more images to click on in some type of menu, scrolling gallery, or after-play recommendation. He can enter the content many ways and because they are all connected together can hop between programmes easily.

4) Identifiable and simple buttons for universal actions

iPlayer has buttons big and conventional enough for a 2-year-old to click on; for selecting, sideways scrolling, playing, pausing, and enlarging to full screen.

5) Key content above the fold, and all in one window

He doesn’t scroll down yet which shows that all this navigation is accomplished in the top part of the page.

6) One-screen experience

It helps that iPlayer works without popups or multiple windows. Otherwise he can accidentally click on the wrong window and get confused, poor chap.

Just because a web site is well designed for a non-reading 2-year-old doesn’t mean that it is well designed for anyone else. But this example proves that even with complex navigation and copious content a site can be simple to get around.

And the hardest part of the process, apart from tackling the plum? – Trying to do all of that clicking on only one side of a clunky, domed, single sprung piece of white plastic. My two-year-old might be a whizz on iPlayer, but he’s no fan of Mighty Mouse.

Orwell’s other advice about writing

If you are writing (anything at all: emails to colleagues, notices on the fridge, product descriptions, text messages to your friends…) then I hope at some point you have come across George Orwell’s 6 rules for writing.

Them’s good rules.

They are the conclusion to his 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, in which he talks about the relationship between clear language and clear thinking. He ends his argument with 6 rules for sharp and accurate writing, in the hope that, not only will people express themselves more clearly, but that they might think more clearly too – that their communication might become meaning-full.

And yet halfway through the article, Orwell mentions another list for writers that gets me just as excited. This list is not talked about half as much (like omg it’s buried in a monster para surely you don’t expect me to like actually read this thing wtf), but it is pure platinum. Reading it is like discovering that The Godfather has a sequel or that Dannii’s sister can sing a bit too.

Orwell says that a ‘scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:’

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

‘And he will probably ask himself two more:’

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

If more writers (of anything at all) were to ask themselves these questions, then the world would be a much clearer and more beautiful place.

Why not ask them about the next thing that you write?

Thank you, Eric Blair.

How to write in faux legalese

Editing a sales brochure recently I came across this line and many more like it:

If required [Company name] can therefore provide an introduction to a solicitor.

This is what George Orwell hated. It is an unnecessarily inflated way to say something simple. Look at all the extraneous parts:

If required – the whole thing is if required. It’s a sales brochure. Just describe your service and let the reader decide if it is required or not.

Therefore is also redundant. There is no need to state explicitly that this sentence follows the previous one in logical argument. If I said: I like plums. Therefore can I have one of yours? – it would make sense. But take ‘therefore’ out and it still makes sense. Human-sounding sense.

Provide an introduction to is one of Orwell’s ‘false limbs’. Keep it simple. Choose the basic verb: introduce.

Orwell deplored this sort of language in politics. It is everywhere in business, inflating sentences to sound grandiose. I call it the faux legal style. It sounds like a contract or piece of legislation, yet is thin in actual meaning. Far from convince, it is more likely to put customers off, by forcing them to read more than they have to for little reward.

What the writer meant to say was:

We can introduce you to a solicitor.

Isn’t that better? Not just for understanding but for tone of voice too?

Writing in the faux legal style

Ten tips to say lots while saying nothing at all:

1. Use unnecessary phrases, such as this one.
2. Choose a protracted and more lengthy phrase where possible.
3. In addition, employ words that therefore reinforce the obvious logical connections, thus.
4. Let your verbs exhibit a tendency to complexity.
5. Capitalise certain Nouns whenever they appear.
6. Sprinkle in some Latin or Greek ad nauseam.
7. Talk about yourself in the third person as SmyWord here illustrates.
8. Qualify your assertions endlessly, regardless of necessity, whether they need to be qualified or not.
9. Omit all feeling that is what some would recognise to be emotional terminology.
10. Let the passive be used instead of the active.

In conclusion, therefore, a suitable area for the Reader’s comments upon this subject is afforded space below, should the Reader wish to remark, ruminate or give exposition to his or her thoughts upon the matters raised by the Author in this article.

That is, any comments?

What George Orwell actually said about writing

Writers love George Orwell. He wrote this:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Legend. If discovering or being reminded of these rules is what you take away from this post – then my work here is done. However, if you want to know what Orwell was really getting at, read on.

Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, from which the above is an excerpt, makes a more fundamental point than simply how to write good. He is concerned with the effect of language on our ability to think.

He claims that not only do foolish thoughts lead to ugly, stale and inaccurate language – but that ugly, stale and inaccurate language ‘makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.’ He says: ‘if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’

The more we use poor language, the poorer our thoughts become.

If we don’t have the words we can’t have the thoughts.

Orwell was writing about the language used by politicians. He was concerned, not just that they all get their points across clearly, but that they preserve the ability to have a point worth making in the first place. That, when alone in their minds, their attempt to formulate ideas is equipped with the best arsenal possible – in array, range, and accuracy. That they are able to have the important thoughts in the first place, before they even say a word.

It is easy to imagine that for politicians the thoughts that they have are a matter of life and death to others, because they consider and discuss policies concerning military action, social welfare, security, crime and health.

But what are the consequences of your thoughts? On your business, your relationships, your health, your future, your art, your contribution? The popularity of cognitive therapy suggests that the ability to change what you think about yourself and your environment is crucial to your ability to change at all. But from where will you get the language for those new thoughts?

What if improving your language could unlock a greater range of options for your work? That by learning to speak and write more accurately – as we all can – you might begin to think more accurately too?

Orwell wanted people to say more clearly what they meant. But he wanted them to mean something worthwhile to begin with. Behind his excellent editorial tips lie two principles that should underpin everything that we write:

1. Mean something before you say anything
2. The clearer your language, the better your thoughts

Something to think about the next time you use leverage as a verb.

What do you think?

Gabriel Smy is a writer working on the web. His passion is making things clear. He is a Content Strategist for a small but perfectly formed web company in Cambridge, UK. As well as SmyWord, he runs the poetry blog Verbatim and writes about his first novel at Tongues of Men. Of course, you should follow him on twitter here.

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