Don't Write Like An Idiot

Writing with a clear and simple style is critical to the success of your website, because online visitors have to quickly understand that your site/page solves their problem, or they leave.

To help you chase the corporate-speak out of your online (and offline) vocabulary, there's new book: Why Business People Speak Like Idiots.

Judging by the web site and blog it looks like the authors lead by example and have found plenty of candidates for the gobbledy-gook hall of fame, such as this:

"By merging data from SAP and non-SAP applications with business intelligence queries, SAP Analytics eliminate disparate islands of data and seamlessly combine transactional, analytic and collaborative steps across multiple business functions, departments and even organizational boundaries."

Even better, they have developed an online application that rates your writing (or any sample you paste in) and offers an instant critique. Copy some text from your web site and go see how it rates. Here's how an earlier entry on this blog fared:

Bull Diagnosis: Diagnosis: Congratulations - you rely upon standard words to explain concepts. Most concepts will be clear and understood. Keep clean.

Flesch Diagnosis: Diagnosis: Mostly clear, with some unnecessarily long words and sentences. You get to the point, although with an occasional detour. Most educated readers will navigate the text with no difficulty. Longer words and sentences appear occasionally.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at July 9, 2005 4:46 PM | TrackBack