Читать книгу Business Writing for the Web - Dan Furman - Страница 20

Not much to explain here, as bullet points are pretty self-explanatory in and of themselves. I use bullet points a lot. Unlike subheadings, I don’t recommend bullets on every single page, but I NEVER make a website without bullets on a few pages.

Bullet points allow you to make specific points in a very clear fashion. They also make for great scan-ability and are very simple for people to read. See Sample 5.

As you can see from my page, the bullets list the benefits of my website writing in a rather clear fashion (well, technically, they are features. It just sounds better to call them benefits). It gives readers a very simple-to-glance-at picture of my most important points.

This is an example of side-by-side bullets; two across and three down in this case (with a subheading leading it off). But I don’t always do this. If there are only three to five points, I usually use one row, like below (and these bullets will list a few points about them):

 Spacing is important: Keep a space between each point. Bullet points lose their “ease of reading” effect when they are crammed together. And when I say “bullet point,” the bullet itself can be anything; squares, diamonds, numbers, etc.

 Important Note: I also use bullets in paragraph form. There’s no rule that says a bullet list needs to be an actual item list. This bullet is a four-sentence paragraph, and that’s just fine. I often bold the first part of it to make it stand out.

 Important Note Continued: Look at Sample 5. These paragraph bullets are actually quite effective at conveying a point and making the text stand out from the rest of the page. The eyes are drawn to a bullet, and the “shortness” of the information says “easy to read,” and as we’ve already discussed, we LIKE easy!

 Bullets can be links. It’s a great way to list services and the like.

 Lastly, don’t overstay your welcome. Unlike subheadings, which I use early and often, I do not overdo it with bullet points. I use them on maybe 60% of the pages I write (not 99%, like I do with subheadings). That’s because I feel the more pages you use bullets on (and the more times you use them on a single page), the less effective they become. If it seems like everywhere you look on your site you see bullet points, that means you probably have too many.