From IBM Selectrics to social media: The power of words, even nouns

Thursday, December 4, 2008

The power of words, even nouns

As a professional writer for over 30 years, I have understood the power of words. However, my friend and colleague, Brian Massey in his recent blog, has helped convey the importance of the words in web site designs. Like Brian, I agree that a lot of web sites overlook the power of great words. Except for nouns of course. As Roy Bragg, the uberblogger of the Express News noted: "They are greatly overrated." Even so, a few well placed nouns can convey things that great graphics can't never achieve in a web design.

1 comment:

Brian Massey said...: Matt, this is an interesting way of looking at things for image selection: do we want our images to convey verbs or nouns? On an eCommerce site, the scale is tipped in favor of nouns; we want to show the product. For softer offerings, "verb" images will generate calls to action, like "join," "register," and "Tell a Friend."

So what are stock images that so many (lazy) designers use? I'd say they are superlative adverbs like "leader," "innovative," and "unique." In short, they convey little value for the Web visitor.; December 6, 2008 at 6:46 AM