All posts tagged tone

What ‘show don’t tell’ means for web site design

‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures and conversation?’

Show don’t tell is a core design principle here at Endis Solutions. But what does it actually mean?

Given the choice between telling someone something and showing it to them, you should almost always show it. Here’s how, and why:

40 writing tips, both quick and dirty

Admit it. Every now and then you want to read ‘how-to’s in a dirty long list. And every now and then I want to write them.

So here you go. 40 tips for writing well, on the web especially. Happy Christmas.

Bespoke services are for tailors and halfwits

After the fun of ‘Are you stupid enough to use leverage as a verb?’ (in which you added well-considered perspectives on the evolution of language to my fairly bald argument of that’s one ugly word) I’m going to have to break my silence about the word bespoke.

Bespoke is another ugly word, this time an adjective, as in ‘we provide bespoke software solutions’.

It is not common in US English, but is increasingly found in Britain being used to describe services, especially in IT. It is traditionally a tailoring term, coming from the archaic verb bespeak, indicating speaking about or arranging something in advance.

Tailors have used it for centuries to describe suits that are hand-made to an individual’s measurements, as opposed to off the peg, pre-cut garments. Originally, the term described the process whereby a piece of cloth would be reserved for an individual customer. It suggested craft, care and unique personalisation. More recently, it has broadened in tailoring to imply anything that is made to measure.

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:

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 bits that the writer did not need:

Does your web site suffer from the vuvuzela effect?

I couldn’t help laughing at a gag on the radio yesterday. It was a Classic FM style spoof ad: ‘Relax,’ said the deep male voice, ‘to the soothing sound of … Vuvuzela Moods.’

If you have no idea what a vuvuzela is, I’m hazarding a guess that you don’t follow football. Switch on any broadcast of the 2010 World Cup and the first thing you hear is the blaring, persistent, invasive drone of what sounds like thousands of cheap plastic horns being raspberried into deafeningly by thousands of untrained lips all at the same time.

Which is what it is.

Sprezzatura (making complexity appear simple)

The Cambridge University Accommodation Service provide a remarkable service: they find lodgings for thousands of University people; or find tenants for the University, colleges and private landlords, depending how you look at it. The remarkable bit is that their friendly, personalised service is free – even to landlords most of the listings are without charge.

To make this happen through a web site is difficult, because there are so many parties involved. Students, scholars and staff are looking for accommodation, but sometimes departments look on their behalf. The University wants to fill its houses and rooms, as do individual Colleges, but only sometimes, and sporadically. Private landlords also want tenants, and hotels and B&Bs would like to advertise in case anyone needs a short-term stopover…

And the staff need to co-ordinate all this behind the scenes.