{"rowid": 9, "title": "How to Write a Book", "contents": "Were you recently inspired to write a book after reading Owen Gregory\u2019s compendium of author insights? Maybe so inspired to strike out on your own and self-publish? \n\nBased on personal experience, writing a book is hard. It requires a great deal of research, experience, and patience. To be able to consolidate your thoughts and what you\u2019ve learned into a sensible and readable tome is an admirable feat. To decide to self-publish and take on yourself all of the design, printing, distribution, and so much more is tantamount to insanity. Again, based on personal experience.\n\nSo, why might you want to self-publish?\n\nIf you\u2019ve spent many a late night doing cross-browser testing just to know that your site works flawlessly in twenty-four different browsers \u2014 including Mosaic, of course \u2014 then maybe you\u2019ll understand the fun that comes from doing it all.\n\nWorking with a publisher, you\u2019re left to focus on one core thing: writing. That\u2019s a good thing. A good publisher has the right resources to help you get your idea polished and the distribution network to get your book on store shelves around the world. It\u2019s a very proud moment to be able to walk into a book store and see your book sitting there on the shelf.\n\nSelf-publishing can also be a wonderful process as you get to own it from beginning to end. Every decision is yours and if you\u2019re a control freak like me, this can be a very rewarding experience. \n\nWhile there are many aspects to self-publishing, I\u2019m going to speak to just one of them: creating an ebook.\n\nFormats \n\nIn creating an ebook, you first need to decide what formats you wish to support. There are three main formats, each with their own pros and cons:\n\n\n\tPDF\n\tEPUB\n\tMOBI\n\n\nPDFs are supported on almost every device (Windows, Mac, Kindle, iPad, Android, etc.) and can even be a stepping stone to creating a print version of your book. PDFs allow for full typographic and design control, but at the cost of needing to fit things into a predefined page layout. Is it US Letter or A4? Or is it a format that isn\u2019t easily printed by readers on their home printers?\n\nEPUB is a more fluid format that is supported by the Apple iPad, iPhone, and now on the desktop with OS X Mavericks. It\u2019s also supported by Google Play for Android devices. While EPUB is supported on other devices, you\u2019re likely to choose EPUB because you\u2019re targeting your book at the Apple audience. The EPUB format is HTML-based with support for some CSS and even video and interactive elements. You can create very rich and exciting experiences using the EPUB format that just aren\u2019t possible with PDF or MOBI. However, if you decide to support multiple file formats, you\u2019ll likely find \u2014 as I did \u2014 that a consistent experience between all formats is easier to build and maintain, and therefore the extra benefits of interactivity go out the window.\n\nMOBI is a format originally developed for the Mobipocket Reader but more popularly supported by the Amazon Kindle. If you\u2019re looking to attract the Kindle audience or publish to Amazon via the Kindle Direct Publishing platform then the HTML-based MOBI format is the format you\u2019ll want to go with. \n\nDistribution will probably factor in heavily with what format you decide to go with. Many people I know who self-publish go with PDF only due to its ubiquity. \n\nIf you want to garner a wider audience by distributing via Amazon or the iBookstore then you\u2019ll need to think about supporting all three formats (as I did).\n\nWhat tools should I use?\n\nI spent a lot of time figuring out the right toolset and finally got something that suits me just right.\n\nIn the past, when working with a publisher, I was given a Microsoft Word template that was passed back and forth between myself, the editor, and tech reviewer. This template has been the bane of any book writer that I\u2019ve spoken to. Not every publisher is like that, though. Some publishers, like O\u2019Reilly, use DocBook, an XML-based format that can be converted into PDF, EPUB, and MOBI.\n\nPublishers already have a style guide and whether it\u2019s DocBook or a Word template, they have the tools already in place to easily convert your work into multiple formats.\n\nSelf-publishing means that you\u2019ll likely have to do a lot of tweaking to get things looking and working the way you want them to. I tried DocBook and the open source export tools didn\u2019t create HTML to my liking. Fixing even the most mundane things required fiddling with XSL transformations for hours on end. Not the way I like to spend my time. I can only imagine the hoops I would\u2019ve had to go through to get a PDF to look half-decent.\n\nTools like Pages or Scrivener offer up the ability to publish to multiple formats, too, but none offered me the control over the output that I truly desired. Have a mentioned that I\u2019m a control freak?\n\nI ended up writing my book using a technology that I already knew quite well: HTML. By writing in HTML, I already had something that I could post on my website, use for the EPUB and use for the MOBI format. All without having to change a thing. (That\u2019s right: the same HTML that is used on SMACSS.com is used in the EPUB and is used in the MOBI.)\n\nWhat about PDF? I could open up the HTML in a web browser, choose Save as PDF and be done with it but let\u2019s face it: the filename and date attached to every single page doesn\u2019t exactly scream professional. Web browsers actually do a surprisingly poor job with supporting the CSS paged media spec.\n\nI had resorted to copying and pasting the content into Pages and saving as PDF from there. It wasn\u2019t elegant but it worked. However, any changes to my HTML source required redoing those changes in Pages, as well. \n\nThen I met my Prince Charming: Prince XML. It\u2019s pricey but it works incredibly well. It takes HTML and CSS (that very format I\u2019ve been using for all of my other file formats) and will generate a PDF via a command line interface. Prince supports CSS paged media including headers, footers, page counts, and alternating page styles. \n\nFrom one format, HTML, I can now easily publish to PDF, MOBI, and EPUB, and even my website. I use the PDF version to send to the printer along with cover art to be bound and ready to ship around the world. It\u2019s amazing how versatile HTML (and CSS) is.\n\nTo learn more about writing books with HTML and CSS, I recommend reading Building Books with CSS3 over at A List Apart.\n\nCreating an EPUB\n\nLet\u2019s take a step back. Prince gets us from HTML to PDF but how do we make an EPUB out of the HTML? \n\nAn EPUB file is essentially a ZIP file with a renamed extension. There are some core files that you need to start with:\n\nRoot\n   META-INF\n      container.xml\n   mimetype\n   content.opf\n   toc.ncx\n\nAfter that, you can start adding your content to the project. Be sure to update the toc.ncx (Table of Contents) and content.opf (the ebook manifest) with any changes you make to your project.\n\nYou can learn more about the file formats with the EPUB Format Construction Guide.\n\nOnce all your files are in place, you\u2019ll need to create the EPUB file by running two commands (on OS X, at least):\n\nzip -X0 your-ebook.epub mimetype\nzip -Xur9D your-ebook.epub *\n\nThe mimetype needs to be the first file inside the ZIP file and therefore gets added first. Then, the rest of the files are added. \n\nI\u2019ve added a function to my .bash_profile to make this even easier:\n\nfunction epub()\n{\n   zip -q0X $@ mimetype; zip -qXr9D $@ *\n}\n\nThen, within the folder from which I want to create an ebook, I just run epub your-ebook.epub from the Terminal command line and the EPUB file should be ready to go.\n\nCreating the MOBI\n\nWe have our EPUB and we have our PDF. The last step is the MOBI file. For this, I call upon Calibre. Calibre can be used as a reader and as a library but I use it exclusively to export my EPUB files to MOBI. \n\nCalibre includes a command line utility to convert from EPUB to MOBI. (To install the command line tools, go to Preferences > Advanced > Miscellaneous and click Install Command Line Tools.)\n\nebook-convert your-ebook.epub your-ebook.mobi \n\nSpread the joy\n\nNow that you have all of your different file formats, you need to get them into the hands of people who want to (ho-ho-hopefully) buy your book!\n\nThere are a number of marketplaces such as Amazon\u2019s Kindle Direct Publishing, iBookstore, Google Play, and NOOK Press.\n\nSome publishers, like PragProg and O\u2019Reilly will also add self-published books to their roster if they feel it\u2019s a good fit for their audience.\n\nWith any distribution, you\u2019ll have to give up a percentage of your sales\u2014from 30% to 70% of each sale, so consider your options wisely.\n\nOf course, you can always open your own online store and reap as much of the revenue as possible, assuming you can get the traffic to your site. Handling your own distribution allows you to create a deeper one-on-one connection with your customers, something that is impossible with other distribution channels since you don\u2019t get customer information through other services\u2014even though you are giving them a huge chunk of your sales!\n\nGo forth and prosper\n\nThere\u2019s a lot of thought and time that goes into writing a book and just as much thought and time can go into creating, publishing, and marketing your book once you\u2019re done. \n\nIn the end, self-publishing can be a very rewarding process and well worth the time that goes into it.", "year": "2013", "author": "Jonathan Snook", "author_slug": "jonathansnook", "published": "2013-12-19T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/how-to-write-a-book/", "topic": "content"}
{"rowid": 19, "title": "In Their Own Write: Web Books and their Authors", "contents": "The currency of written communication \u2014 words on the page, words on the screen \u2014 comprises many denominations. To further our ends in web design and development, we freely spend and receive several: tweets aphoristic and trenchant, banal and perfunctory; blog posts and articles that call us to action or reflection; anecdotes, asides, comments, essays, guides, how-tos, manuals, musings, notes, opinions, stories, thoughts, tips pro and not-so-pro. So many, many words.\n\nOur industry (so much more than this, but what on earth are we, collectively?), our community thrives on writing and sharing knowledge and experience. 24 ways is a case in point. Everyone can learn and contribute through reading and writing \u2014 it\u2019s what we\u2019ve always done.\n\nTo web authors and readers seeking greater returns, though, broader culture has vouchsafed an enduring and singular artefact: the book.\n\nLast month I asked a small sample of web book authors if they would be prepared to answer a few questions; most of them kindly agreed. In spirit, the survey was informal: I had neither hypothesis nor unground axe. I work closely with writers \u2014 and yes, I\u2019ve edited or copy-edited books by several of the authors I surveyed \u2014 and wanted to share their thoughts about what it was like to write a book (\u201c\u2026it was challenging to find a coherent narrative\u201d), why they did it (\u201cWho wouldn\u2019t want to?\u201d) and what they learned from the experience (\u201cThat I could!\u201d).\n\nReasons for writing a book\n\nIn web development the connection between authors and readers is unusually close and immediate. Working in our medium precipitates a unity that\u2019s rare elsewhere. Yet writing and publishing a book, even during the current books revolution, is something only a few of us attempt and it remains daunting and a little remote. What spurs an author to try it? For some, it\u2019s a deeply held resistance to prevailing trends:\n\nI felt that designers and developers needed to be shaken out of what seemed to me had been years of stagnation.\n\u2014Andrew Clarke\n\n\nOr even a desire to protect us from ourselves:\n\nI felt that without a book that clearly defined progressive enhancement in a very approachable and succinct fashion, the web was at risk. I was seeing Tim Berners-Lee\u2019s vision of universal availability slip away\u2026\n\u2014Aaron Gustafson\n\n\nSometimes, there\u2019s a knowledge gap to be filled by an author with the requisite excitement and need to communicate. Jon Hicks took his \u201cpet subject\u201d and was \u201centhused enough to want to spend all that time writing\u201d, particularly because:\n\n\n\t\u2026there was a gap in the market for it. No one had done it before, and it\u2019s still on its own out there, with no competition. It felt like I was able to contribute something.\n\n\nCennydd Bowles felt a professional itch at a particular point in his career, understanding that\n\n\n\t[a]s a designer becomes more senior, they start looking for ways to scale the effects of their work. For some, that leads into management. For others, into writing.\n\n\nOften, though, it\u2019s also simply a personal challenge and ambition to explore a subject at length and create something substantial. Anna Debenham describes a motivation shared by several authors:\n\nTo be able to point to something more tangible than an article and be able to say \u201cI did that.\u201d\n\n\nThat sense of a book\u2019s significance, its heft and gravity even, stems partly from the cultural esteem which honours books and their authors. Books have a long history as sources of wisdom, truth and power. Even with more books being published each year than ever before, writing one is still commonly considered a laudable achievement, including in our field.\n\nChallenges of writing a book\n\nReceived wisdom has it that writing online should be brief and chunky and approachable: get to the point; divide it all up; subheadings and lists are our friends; write like you\u2019re talking; no one has time to read. Much of such advice is true. Followed well, it lends our writing punch and pith, vigour and vim. The web is nimble, the web keeps up, and it suits what we write about developing for it. It\u2019s perfect for delivering our observations, queries and investigations into all the various aspects of the work, professional and personal.\n\nYet even for digital natives like web authors, books printed and electronic retain an attractive glister. \n\nIdeas can be developed more fully, their consequences explored to greater depth and extended with more varied examples, and the whole conveyed with more eloquence, more style. Why shouldn\u2019t authors delay their conclusions if the intervening text is apposite, rich with value and helps to flesh out the skeleton of an argument? Conclusions might or might not be reached, of course, but a writer is at greater liberty in a book to digress in tangential and interesting ways.\n\nWriting a book involves committing time, energy, thought and money. As Brian Suda found, it can be tough \u201cgetting the ideas out of my head into a cohesive blob of text.\u201d Some authors end up talking to themselves\u2026\n\nIt helps me to keep a real person in mind, someone who I\u2019m talking to as I write. Sometimes I have the same conversations over and over in my head.\n\u2014Andrew Clarke\n\n\n\u2026while others are thinking ahead, concerned with how their book will be received:\n\nWould anyone want to read it? Would they care? Would it be respected by my peers?\n\u2014Joe Leech\n\n\nChallenges that arose time and again included \u201cstarting\u201d and \u201cgetting words on the page\u201d as well as \u201cknowing when to stop\u201d or \u201cletting go\u201d. Personal organization problems and those caused by publishers were also widely mentioned. Time loomed large. Making time, finding time. Giving up \u201csleep and some sanity\u201d and realizing \u201cit will take you far, far, far longer than you naively assumed\u201d. Importantly, writing time is time away from gainful employment: Aaron Gustafson found the hardest thing about writing a book to be \u201cthe loss of income while I was writing.\u201d\n\nPerils and pleasures of editing\n\nEditing, be it structural, technical or copy editing, is founded on reciprocity. Without openness and a shared belief that the book is worthwhile, work can founder in acrimony and mistrust. Editors are a book\u2019s first and most critical (in every sense) readers. Effective and perceptive editing makes a book as good as it can be, finding the book within the draft like sculpture reveals the statue in the stone.\n\nA good editor calls you out on poor assumptions and challenges you to really clarify your thinking. Whilst it can be difficult during the process to have your thinking challenged, it\u2019s always been worth it \u2014 for me personally \u2014 in the long run. A good editor also reins you in when you\u2019ve perhaps wandered off track or taken a little too long to make a point.\n\u2014Christopher Murphy\n\n\nAndy Croll found editing \u201call positive\u201d and Aaron Gustafson loves \u201cworking with a strong editor [\u2026] I want someone to tell it to me straight.\u201d But it can be a rollercoaster, \u201cboth terrifying and the real moment of elation\u201d. Mixed emotions during the editing process are common:\n\nIt was very uncomfortable! I knew it was making the work stronger, but it was awkward having my inconsistencies and waffle picked apart.\n\u2014Jon Hicks\n\n\nIt can be distressing to have written work looked over by a professional, particularly for first-time book authors whose expertise lies elsewhere:\n\nI was a little nervous because I don\u2019t consider myself a skilled writer \u2014 I never dreamed of becoming an author. I\u2019m a designer, after all.\n\u2014Geri Coady\n\n\nCommunication is key, particularly when it comes to checking or changing the author\u2019s words.\n\nI like a good banter between me and the tech editor \u2014 if we can have a proper argument in Word comments, that\u2019s great.\n\u2014Rachel Andrew\n\n\nBut if handled poorly, small battles can break out. Rachel Andrew again:\n\n\n\tHowever, having had plenty of times where the technical editor has done nothing more than give a cursory glance, I started to leave little issues in for them to spot. If they picked them up I knew they were actually testing the code and I could be sure the work was being properly tech edited. If they didn\u2019t spot them, I\u2019d find someone myself to read through and check it!\n\n\nA major concern for writers is that their voices will be altered, filtered, mangled or otherwise obscured by the editing process. Good copy editing must remain unnoticed while enhancing the author\u2019s voice in print. Donna Spencer appreciated the way her editor \u201ctidied up my work and made it a million times better, but left it sounding exactly like me.\u201d Similarly, Andrew Travers \u201cwas incredibly impressed at how well my editor tightened up my own writing without it feeling like another\u2019s voice\u201d and Val Head sums up the consensus that:\n\n\n\tthe editor was able to help me express what I was trying to say in a better way [\u2026] I want to have editors for everything now.\n\n\nAt the keyboard, keep your friends close, but your editors closer.\n\nPublishing and publishers\n\nConditions ought to militate against the allure of writing a book about web design and development. More books are published each year than ever before, so readerships elude new authors and readers can struggle to find authors to trust in their fields of interest. New spaces for more expansive online writing about working on and with the web are opening up (sites like Contents Magazine and STET), and seminal online web development texts are emerging. Publishing online is simple, far-reaching and immediate.\n\nMuch more so than articles and blog posts, books take time to research, write and read; add the complexity of commissioning, editing, designing, proofreading, printing, marketing and distribution processes, and it can take many months, even years to publish. The ceaseless headlong momentum of the web can leave articles more than a few weeks old whimpering in its wake, but updating them at least is straightforward; printed books about web development can depreciate as rapidly as the technology and techniques they describe, while retaining the \u201cterrifying permanence that print bestows: your opinions will follow you forever\u201d.\n\nSo much moves on, and becomes out of date. Companies featured get bought by larger companies and die, techniques improve and solutions featured become terribly out of date. Unlike a website, which could be updated continuously, a book represents the thinking \u2018at that time\u2019.\n\u2014Jon Hicks\n\n\nPublishers work hard to mitigate these issues, promoting new books and new authors, bringing authors and readers together under a trusted banner. When a publisher packages up and releases a writer\u2019s words, it confers a seal of approval and \u201cbadge of quality\u201d, very important to new authors.\n\nPublishers have other benefits to offer, from expert knowledge:\n\nMy publisher was extraordinarily supportive (and patient). Her expertise in my chosen subject was both a pressure (I didn\u2019t want to let her down) and a reassurance (if she liked it, I knew it was going to be fine).\n\u2014Andrew Travers\n\n\n\u2026to systems and support mechanisms set up specifically to encourage writers and publish books:\n\nWorking as a team means you\u2019re bringing in everyone\u2019s expertise.\n\u2014Chui Chui Tan\n\n\nAs a writer, the best part about writing for a publisher was the writing infrastructure offered.\n\u2014Christopher Murphy\n\n\nThere can be drawbacks, however, and the occasional horror story:\n\nWe were just one small package on a huge conveyor belt. The publisher\u2019s process ruled all.\n\u2014Cennydd Bowles\n\n\nIt\u2019s only looking back I realise how poorly some publishers treat writers \u2014 especially when the work is so poorly remunerated.My worst experience was when a publisher decided, after I had completed the book, that they wanted to push a different take on the subject than the brief I had been given. Instead of talking to me, they rewrote chunks of my words, turning my advice into something that I would never have encouraged. Ultimately, I refused to let the book go out under my name alone, and I also didn\u2019t really promote the book as I would have had to point out the things I did not agree with that had been inserted!\n\u2014Rachel Andrew\n\n\nSelf-publishing is now a realistic option for web authors, and can offers \u201ccomplete control over the end product\u201d as well as the possibility of earning more than a \u201cpathetic author revenue percentage\u201d. There can be substantial barriers, of course, as self-publishing authors must face for themselves the risks and challenges conventional publishers usually bear. Ideally, creating a book is a collaboration between author and publisher. Geri Coady found that \u201cworking with my publisher felt more like working with a partner or co-worker, rather than working for a boss.\u201d\n\nWise words\n\nSo, after meeting the personal costs of writing and publishing a web book \u2014 fear, uncertainty, doubt, typing (so much typing) \u2014 and then smelling the roses of success, what\u2019s left for an author to say? Some words, perhaps, to people thinking of writing a book.\n\nDonna Spencer identifies a stumbling block common to many writers with an insight into the writing process:\n\n\n\tHaving talked to a lot of potential authors, I think most have the problem that they haven\u2019t actually figured out the \u2018answer\u2019 to their premise yet. They feel like they are stuck in the writing, but they are actually stuck in the thinking.\n\n\nFor some no-nonsense, straightforward advice to cut through any anxiety or inadequacy, Rachel Andrew encourages authors to \u201ctreat it like any other work. There is no mystery to writing, you just have to write. Schedule the time, sit down, write words.\u201d Tim Brown notes the importance of the editing process to refine a book and help authors reach their readers:\n\n\n\tHire good editors. Editors are amazing thinkers who can vastly improve the quality and clarity of a piece of writing.\n\n\nWe are too much beholden to the practical demands and challenges of technology, so Aaron Gustafson suggests a writer should \u201cfavor philosophies over techniques and your book will have a longer shelf life.\u201d\n\nMost intimations of renown and recognition are nipped in the bud by Joe Leech\u2019s warning: \u201cDon\u2019t expect fame and fortune.\u201d Although Cennydd Bowles\u2019 bitter experience can be discouraging:\n\n\n\tThe sacrifices required are immense. You probably won\u2019t make it.\n\n\n\u2026he would do things differently for a future book:\n\n\n\tI would approach the book with [\u2026] far more concern about conveying the damn joy of what I do for a living.\n\n\nThe pleasure of writing, not just having written is captured by James Chudley when he recalls:\n\n\n\tHow much I enjoy writing and also how much I enjoy the discipline or having a side project like this. It\u2019s a really good supplement to working life.\n\n\nAnd Jon Hicks has words that any author will find comforting:\n\n\n\tIt will be fine. Everything will be fine. Just get on with it!\n\n\n\n\nAs the web expands effortlessly and ceaselessly to make room for all our words, yet it can also discourage the accumulation of any particular theme in one space, dividing rich seams and scattering knowledge across the web\u2019s surface and into its deepest reaches. How many words become weightless and insubstantial, signals lost in the constant white noise of indistinguishable voices, unloved, unlinked? The web forgets constantly, despite the (somewhat empty) promise of digital preservation: articles and data are sacrificed to expediency, profit and apathy; online attention, acknowledgement and interest wax and wane in days, hours even.\n\nBooks can encourage deeper engagement in readers, and foster faith in an author, particularly if released under the imprint of a recognized publisher within the field. And books are changing. Although still not widely adopted, EPUB3 is the new standard in ebooks, bringing with it new possibilities for interaction and connection: readers with the text; readers with readers; and readers with authors. EPUB3 is built on HTML, CSS and JavaScript \u2014 sound familiar? In the past, we took what we could from the printed page to make the web; now books are rubbing up against what we\u2019ve made.\n\nSo: a book.\n\nEver thought you could write one? Should write one? Would?\n\n\n\nI\u2019d like to thank all the authors who wrote their books and answered my questions.\n\n\n\tRachel Andrew \u00b7 CSS3 Layout Modules, The CSS3 Anthology and more\n\tCennydd Bowles \u00b7 Undercover User Experience Design, with James Box\n\tTim Brown \u00b7 Combining Typefaces\n\tJames Chudley \u00b7 Usability of Web Photos\n\tAndrew Clarke \u00b7 Hardboiled Web Design\n\tGeri Coady \u00b7 Colour Accessibility\n\tAndy Croll \u00b7 HTML Email\n\tAnna Debenham \u00b7 Front-end Style Guides\n\tAaron Gustafson \u00b7 Adaptive Web Design\n\tVal Head \u00b7 CSS Animations\n\tJon Hicks \u00b7 The Icon Handbook\n\tJoe Leech \u00b7 Psychology for Designers\n\tChristopher Murphy \u00b7 The Craft of Words, with Niklas Persson\n\tDonna Spencer \u00b7 Information Architecture, Card Sorting and How to Write Great Copy for the Web\n\tBrian Suda \u00b7 Designing with Data\n\tChui Chui Tan \u00b7 International User Research\n\tAndrew Travers \u00b7 Interviewing for Research", "year": "2013", "author": "Owen Gregory", "author_slug": "owengregory", "published": "2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/web-books/", "topic": "content"}
{"rowid": 24, "title": "Kill It With Fire! What To Do With Those Dreaded FAQs", "contents": "In the mid-1640s, a man named Matthew Hopkins attempted to rid England of the devil\u2019s influence, primarily by demanding payment for the service of tying women to chairs and tossing them into lakes.\n\nUnsurprisingly, his methods garnered criticism. Hopkins defended himself\u00a0in The Discovery of Witches\u00a0in 1647, subtitled \u201cCertaine Queries answered, which have been and are likely to be objected against MATTHEW HOPKINS, in his way of finding out Witches.\u201d\n\nEach \u201cquerie\u201d was written in the voice of an imagined detractor, and answered in the voice of an imagined defender (always referring to himself as \u201cthe discoverer,\u201d or \u201chim\u201d):\n\n\n\tQuer. 14.\n\n\tAll that the witch-finder doth is to fleece the country of their money, and therefore rides and goes to townes to have imployment, and promiseth them faire promises, and it may be doth nothing for it, and possesseth many men that they have so many wizzards and so many witches in their towne, and so hartens them on to entertaine him.\n\n\tAns.\n\n\tYou doe him a great deale of wrong in every of these particulars.\n\n\nHopkins\u2019 self-defense was an early modern English FAQ.\n\nDigital beginnings\n\nQuestion and answer formatting certainly isn\u2019t new, and stretches back much further than witch-hunt days. But its most modern, most notorious, most reviled incarnation is the internet\u2019s frequently asked questions page.\n\nFAQs began showing up on pre-internet mailing lists\u00a0as a way for list members to answer and pre-empt newcomers\u2019 repetitive questions:\n\n\n\tThe presumption was that new users would download archived past messages through ftp. In practice, this rarely happened and the users tended to post questions to the mailing list instead of searching its archives. Repeating the \u201cright\u201d answers becomes tedious\u2026\n\n\nWhen all the users of a system can hear all the other users, FAQs make a lot of sense: the conversation needs to be managed and manageable. FAQs were a stopgap for the technological limitations of the time.\n\nBut the internet moved past mailing lists. Online information can be stored, searched, filtered, and muted; we choose and control our conversations. New users no longer rely on the established community to answer their questions for them.\n\nAnd yet, FAQs are still around. They\u2019re a content anti-pattern, replicated from site to site to solve a problem we no longer have.\n\nWhat we hate when we hate FAQs\n\nAs someone who creates and structures online content \u2013 always with the goal of making that content as useful as possible to people \u2013 FAQs drive me absolutely batty. Almost universally, FAQs represent the opposite of useful. A brief list of their sins:\n\n\nDouble trouble\nDuplicated content is practically a given with FAQs. They\u2019re written as though they\u2019ll be accessed in a vacuum \u2013 but search results, navigation patterns, and curiosity ensure that users will seek answers throughout the site. Is our goal to split their focus? To make them uncertain of where to look? To divert them to an isolated microcosm of the website? Duplicated content means user confusion (to say nothing of the duplicated workload for maintaining content).\nLeaving the job unfinished\nMany FAQs fail before they\u2019re even out of the gate, presenting a list of questions that\u2019s incomplete (too short and careless to be helpful) or irrelevant (avoiding users\u2019 real concerns in favor of soundbites). Alternately, if the right questions are there, the answers may be convoluted, jargon-heavy, or otherwise difficult to understand.\nLong lists of not-my-question\nGetting a single answer often means sifting through a haystack of questions. For each potential question, the user must read, comprehend, assess, move on, rinse, repeat. That\u2019s a lot of legwork for little reward \u2013 and a lot of opportunity for mistakes. Users may miss their question, or they may fail to recognize a differently worded version of their question, or they may not notice when their sought-after answer appears somewhere they didn\u2019t expect.\nThe ventriloquist act\nFAQs shift the point of view. While websites speak on behalf of the organization (\u201cour products,\u201d \u201cour services,\u201d \u201cyou can call us for assistance,\u201d etc.), FAQs speak as the user \u2013 \u201cI can\u2019t find my password\u201d or \u201cHow do I sign up?\u201d Both voices are written from the first-person perspective, but speak for different entities, which is disorienting: it breaks the tone and messaging across the website. It\u2019s also presumptuous: why do you get to speak for the user?\n\n\nThese all underscore FAQs\u2019 fatal flaw: they are content without context, delivered without regard for the larger experience of the website. You can hear the absurdity in the name itself: if users are asking the same questions so frequently, then there is an obvious gulf between their needs and the site content. (And if not, then we have a labeling problem.)\n\nInstead of sending users to a jumble of maybe-it\u2019s-here-maybe-it\u2019s-not questions, the answers to FAQs should be found naturally throughout a website. They are not separated, not isolated, not other. They are\u00a0the content.\n\nTo present it otherwise is to create a runaround, and users know it. Jay Martel\u2019s parody, \u201cF.A.Q.s about F.A.Q.s\u201d\u00a0captures the silliness and frustration of such a system:\n\n\n\tQ: Why are you so rude?\n\n\tA: For that answer, you would have to consult an F.A.Q.s about F.A.Q.s about F.A.Q.s. But your time might be better served by simply abandoning your search for a magic answer and taking responsibility for your own profound ignorance.\n\n\nFAQs aren\u2019t magic answers. They don\u2019t resolve a content dilemma or even help users. Yet they keep cropping up, defiant, weedy, impossible to eradicate.\n\nWhere are they all coming from?\n\nBlame it on this: writing is hard. When generating content, most of us do whatever it takes to get some words on the screen. And the format of question and answer makes it easy: a reactionary first stab at content development.\n\nAfter all, the point of website content is to answer users\u2019 questions. So this \u2013 to give everyone credit \u2013 is a really good move. Content creators who think in terms of questions and answers are actually thinking of their users, particularly first-time users, trying to anticipate their needs and write towards them.\n\nIt\u2019s a good start. But it\u2019s scaffolding: writing that helps you get to the writing you\u2019re supposed to be doing. It supports you while you write your way to the heart of your content. And once you get there, you have to look back and take the scaffolding down.\n\nLeaving content in the Q&A format that helped you develop it is missing the point. You\u2019re not there to build scaffolding. You have to see your content in its naked purpose and determine the best method for communicating that purpose \u2013 and it usually won\u2019t be what got you there.\n\nThe goal (to borrow a lesson from content management systems) is to separate the content from its presentation, to let the meaning of the content inform its display.\n\nThis is, of course, a nice theory.\n\nAn occasionally necessary evil\n\nI have a lot of clients who adore FAQs. They\u2019ve developed their content over a long period of time. They\u2019ve listened to the questions their users are asking. And they\u2019ve answered them all on a page that I simply cannot get them to part with.\n\nWhich means I\u2019ve had to consider that there may be occasions where an FAQ page is appropriate.\n\nAs an example: one of my clients is a financial office in a large institution. Because this office manages several third-party systems that serve a range of niche audiences, they had developed FAQs that addressed hyper-specific instances of dysfunction within systems for different users \u2013 \u00e0 la \u201cI\u2019m a financial director and my employee submitted an expense report in such-and-such system and it returned such-and-such error. What do I do?\u201d\n\nYes, this content could be removed from the question format and rewritten. But I\u2019m not sure it would be an improvement. It won\u2019t necessarily resolve concerns about length and searchability, and the different audiences may complicate the delivery. And since the work of rewriting it didn\u2019t fit into the client workflow (small team, no writers, pressed for time), I didn\u2019t recommend the change.\n\nI\u2019ve had to make peace with not being to torch all the FAQs on the internet. Some content, like troubleshooting information or complex procedures, may be better in that format. It may be the smartest way for a particular client to handle that particular information.\n\nOf course, this has to be determined on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the amount of content, the subject matter, the skill levels of the content creators, the publishing workflow, and the search habits of the users.\n\nIf you determine that an FAQ page is the only way to go, ask yourself:\n\n\n\tIs there a better label or more specific term for the page (support, troubleshooting, product concerns, etc.)?\n\tIs there way to structure the page, categorize the questions, or otherwise make it easier for users to navigate quickly to the answer they need?\n\tIs a question and answer format absolutely the best way to communicate this information?\n\n\nForm follows function\n\nJust as a question and answer format isn\u2019t necessarily required to deliver the content, neither is it an inappropriate method in and of itself. Content professionals have developed a knee-jerk reaction:\u00a0It\u2019s an FAQ page! Quick, burn it! Buuuuurn it!\n\nBut there\u2019s no inherent evil in questions and answers. Framing content in an interrogatory construct is no more a deal with the devil than subheads and paragraphs, or narrative arcs, or bullet points.\n\nYes, FAQs are riddled with communication snafus. They deserve, more often than not, to be tied to a chair and thrown into a lake. But that wouldn\u2019t fix our content problems. FAQs are a shiny and obvious target for our frustration, but they\u2019re not unique in their flaws. In any format, in any display, in any kind of page, weak content can rear its ugly, poorly written head.\n\nIt\u2019s not the Q&A that\u2019s to blame, it\u2019s bad content. Content without context will always fail users. That\u2019s the real witch in our midst.", "year": "2013", "author": "Lisa Maria Martin", "author_slug": "lisamariamartin", "published": "2013-12-08T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/what-to-do-with-faqs/", "topic": "content"}