V. Editing Content for the web
21. Although basically the content formats of printed and Internet versions look the same, attention should be paid to paras. 22 to 25 below in editing content for web pages.
22. Conventional paper publications are vertically orientated, quite unlike the horizontal rectangular shape, small size and relatively low resolution of most computer screens. The traditional layouts are larger than the size of computer screens and hence users are required to continually scroll down (or horizontally) without ever seeing the whole page. The content should be edited accordingly prior to uploading.
23. An outstanding feature of web pages is the provision of hypertext links enabling users to skip ˇ§unnecessaryˇ¨ information and go direct to relevant information. Because of this, the structure of content in a web page may be quite different from conventional paper documents. It is useful to keep the main points in the first page, while keeping contents of secondary importance in subsequent pages which can easily be accessed by users via links.
24. Internet users in general do not expect to read lengthy documents on the computer screen. In editing web content, the paragraphs should be kept to a shorter length as far as practicable.
25. If a lengthy document is unavoidable, it is advisable to list the titles of the sections at the top of the page and provide links from titles to the relevant content underneath. Such practice enables Internet users to have an overview of a lengthy document and access the information they are interested in. Provision of navigation icons or text links such as ˇ§nextˇ¨, ˇ§previousˇ¨, ˇ§topˇ¨ are good user-friendly features.
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