Forum Moderators: not2easy
It is probably safe to say that we all believe that errors in text distract people from imbibing the message. This is definitely true if someone consciously notices these errors.
I also believe though that many people subconsciously notice subtle "mistakes" and realize something is wrong with the page but can't put their finger on it. By this I mean, deviations from the style guide including random full stops on list items or a mix of "website", "web site", "web-site". In the end the visitors feel uncomfortable and this leads them to hesitate in making a decision.
When I say something like this, coders think I am even nuttier than usual. Does anyone have any comments, experiences etc. that they'd like to share to prove/disprove this theory?
Thanks!
Colin
I have used it both ways. I seem to have a mental block about using one spelling. I know to proof for it, but I still miss it.
It really surprised me that visitors noticed and commented on it.
jb
However, rather being a few small errors on the designers behalf it is more likely to be a combination of many mistakes (poor navigation, colour scheme, language used, etc, etc) that aren't individually noticable.
Scott
It's about looking professional, and to do that you really shouldn't have errors on the page. It just looks sloppy.
If you're not so hot on spelling or grammar I would have someone check the pages for you.
TJ
I respectfully disagree. I have seen very successful webmasters that had no great command of the English language (me no speak good English either).
The web is Universal and perhaps some surfers realize that the person behind the website is putting his/her best effort in trying to communicate. This too can be seen as being honest, which can lead to trust building.
Foreign (to the English language) webmasters are corageous in that they try to reach a segment where they are not locals (language-wise).
The need for perfect copy varies according to the target audience or the product/service being offered, in my view.
The web is Universal and perhaps some surfers realize that the person behind the website is putting his/her best effort in trying to communicate. This too can be seen as being honest, which can lead to trust building.
You may be right, but "some surfers" is the operative phrase, and why take the risk of losing other potential customers?
TJ
That right there is the key.
I find typos to be a big turnoff, but I also realize that I am more sensitive to them than many-- I'm a big stickler for spelling and grammar. (Having said that, I'm now bracing for people to find all the spelling and grammar mistakes in my posts-- my natural ability to spellcheck has made me extreeeemely lazy.)
So it depends what I'm looking for. If I'm trying to buy something, typos turn me off, and if I see too many little problems like that, I'm liable to take my business elsewhere.
But if I'm just looking for information, I'll root through the most incomprehensible gibberish to get it with little hesitation. I'm much less fussy if what I want doesn't require good spelling or professional punctuation from the writer (and all that goes with it). But if it's a dime-a-dozen product page, I'll go to one that doesn't make me snort in disgust at their abuse of the English language.
I'm also likely to be more understanding if it's plain that the writer is not a native speaker of English, as long as it's not painfully obvious that the company was just too cheap to hire a competent translator. (I'm sorry, if you're selling your services as a translator into English, you really ought to be pretty good at it.) Especially if it's an informational or hobby site. I have no trouble with terrible English if the person's not trying to make money off his writing in and of itself.
An ecommerce site with poor grammar and spellign would turn be off (whether consciously or just subsconsciously, where I'd feel something just wasn't quite right) and then I'd head off to the next competitor's site to check them out.
Even if a person can't afford to hire a copy editor to proof his or her copy, a person can easily paste the content into MS Word and run the grammar/spelling check. Even though it isn't perfect, it can do wonders for poorly written copy, or copy written by those without a strong command of the English language.
And trillianjedi is right - why alienate even a few customers with poorly written and spelled copy. Those few orders all add up to your overall profit, and with poor grammar and spelling, you have just waved goodbye to those customers and sent them off to your competitor to spend their money, when they COULD have spent their money with you.
I'm thinking about a bricks 'n mortar salesperson, for example.
When I'm talking to a salesman and he throws in words like "ain't" or uses a myriad of double-negatives, I'm going to question his intelligence. If he can't string a proper sentence together, what makes me think he's going to know his stuff? Consequently, I'll place less trust in him and am going to be less likely to purchase from his store.
The same holds true for copy on a website. Poorly written copy is going to have a negative impact on users' trust. Your copy is your first, best, and often only chance to make a good impression on someone. If your copy is sloppy, I would think users are going to assume that the rest of your business is sloppy, too.
>>When I'm talking to a salesman and he throws in words like "ain't" or uses a myriad of double-negatives
Vernacular can make a sale as well, especially if the vernacular foments trust or familiarity. Sometimes "home-spun" can be a good thing, 'ceptin when yer a'talking to them what always uses proper grammar. ;) The problem is discerning when and how to use it.
Vernacular and humor can be fantastic sales clinchers, but...
True.
But if that salesman is using "ain't" when selling to me, he don't know his audience very well, do he? ;)
I think it is much safer to be neat and professional than to try and use vernacular - unless you know your audience extremely well.
I couldn't agree more with the fact that perfect copy is necessary most of the time and potentially a big deterrant, but like digitalghost said 'vernacular' can also be a card one can play successfully.
Otherwise, ask rcjordan when he was rolling up his sleeves to handle the oil guys.
> I think it is much safer to be neat and professional than...
Hawkgirl, this is personal -and valid- but just an opinion, and there are many, if not millions, of different opinions about different things. Objectively, one can argue that the appearance of respectability has been abused to cover the worst of scams recently. You can translate that to beautifully designed pages with absolutely perfect copy behind which there are only horror stories to tell.
How can "honesty" be conveyed online? There are many answers to this question.
The hypothesis of Tigrou, if I understood him correctly, revolves around the idea that errors in text -spotted conciously or unconciously- introduce self-doubt. And I do not think this is always the case (based on facts).
Those who run free sites as part of their marketing strategy -and I quote rcjordan again- and are in the business of herding sheep, may understand my point better.
I just wanted to say that the world of the internet has many myths surrounding it and that the world wide web is much larger than what we think and in many cases more forgiving.
This post was much longer than my average, thus more typos. :(
errors in text -spotted consciously or unconsciously- introduce self-doubt.
robertito62,
You stated exactly what I meant.
Tone however is a separate issue. I mean, sometimes you wanna use bad english to gets attention or slang to hit a particular market.
You are also right that this isn't an all-encompassing theory - but I think it works in some cases. One big limiting factor is that some people can't tell the difference between good copy & bad copy. In the case of English, perhaps they are new to the language (kids, ESL), have a learning disability or just haven't bothered to learn "good English".
So this subconscious quality gap is probably related to the reader’s ability to find mistakes if they were giving it their full attention.
For example, a 10-year-old kid may not notice the difference between "there" and "their" in an article, but would notice that you didn't hyphenate & capitalize J-Lo correctly.
To me, it seems that if a company has a web site without errors, I have a better chance of buying something without an error. It is my experience from the inside and the outside that this is absolutely the case. Whether you notice the errors consciously (like we would) or subconsciously (like many a passing, busy potential client might), the copy "quality gap" should have an effect on sales.
OK, I'm not going to blather on forever about this, but I did want to add the interest on my initial two cents.
Cheers,
Tigrou
Ps SEO isn't a major part of my work, but I am part owner of a site that just got number 2 on G in a competitive area! Yippieee!
I would suggest in some cases, honesty can be conveyed by avoiding sales pitch and perfect English.
A blogger using excellent English would appear professional, but one with grammatical (sp?) and spelling errors would at least appear to be honest.
We know sales pitch can be written by anyone, and that to some extent removes the personality from the site. But if you "know" (or at least believe) that Bob is talking to you on www.bobs-widgets.com, then there is an inherent trust placed there.
But, then again, it's very much down to the industry. www.bobs-carsales.com really wants to go for professional, whereas www.bobs-advice.com wants to offer the personal image.
Looking at WW, what impact do you think it would have had if Brett had posted from day 1 under the username "Admin"?
Um...just realised this is wavering off topic slightly... :)
I think my point here is that the level of leeway users give a site is down to the type of site it is - a point mentioned earlier in the thread. :)
Scott
I think my point here is that the level of leeway users give a site is down to the type of site it is - a point mentioned earlier in the thread. :)
I still don't really understand the point to this point.
Unless you're saying that it's actually better to deliberately mis-spell on certain sites to create a feeling of trust?
But if not, then the answer is make sure you've proof-read your pages and there are no mistakes. Surely?
TJ
Yes, proof reading and checking spelling is naturally the way to go for professional sites.
But certain sites in certain industries that have that rough, unfinished edge offer an unique personality lost in cold corporate sites.
Again it's all down to the subconcious feelings of the user. Perhaps similar to why a person would buy a second (or third or fourth) hand Mini Cooper or VW Beetle and not a brand new BMW / Merc? They are looking for "character". Again, not applicable to a lot of industries.
Im sure a lot of people here frequent sites that don't have the corporate gloss, perfect HTML, great rankings, perfect spelling, etc - but they do have, a) the content you are looking for and b) a certain je ne sais que? (sp?)
Scott
But certain sites in certain industries that have that rough, unfinished edge offer an unique personality lost in cold corporate sites.
OK I think I'm with you now.
I'm not sure that would ever work for a commercial site although I could see it perhaps in a hobby based site.
When it comes to people handing over cash, it's a different matter.
You may choose to buy the 1970's Mini Cooper rather than the Jag or Merc, but what we're actually looking at here is *who you buy it from*, not the product.
If I can get my widget from one of several places on the internet, the one that can't be bothered to have his site proof-read is not going to be getting my money.
TJ
But what's about common spelling variations like UK vs. US english?
If those concern important keywords, you would like to be found for both variations.
I do this by optimizing different pages for each variation.
Do you think that's bad in terms of this thread's topic?
Trillian, I agree, perhaps the unique personal approach wont work well for sales sites. But I do think there is something to be said for putting a face on a company and personalising certain elements, but that would naturally need to conform to good copy writing practices.
Scott
There is no excuse for spelling error and poor grammar (or poor grandma's).
We should take the time and trouble to double check these elements. When we go to press with a brochure or an advertisement, we are acutely aware that there is no return ... when the inks hits the paper, the deed is done.
Many of us are all too lazy because in the world of FTP, nothing is ever set in concrete and we can always spellcheek tomorrow.
I think there should be a common language for websites but I flatly refuse to put 'zees' where perfectly good 'esses' should be :)
[typo:)]
[edited by: peewhy at 1:08 pm (utc) on July 14, 2003]
But I do think there is something to be said for putting a face on a company and personalising certain elements...
100% agree - in fact, I would go further and say that in a competitive market, it's crucial to do that in order to survive.
Albert :
[typo:)]lol - how apt...
TJ
I simply ask because I had beautiful American spelling and grammar and then I spent a year in the UK (Upper Sixth Form, A-Levels in English and History, two A's thank you very much) and it b*ll*cksed it all up for me, and now I don't know what to spell how. The best I can do is to be consistent from word to word, but I hardly notice the different ones when I'm reading. I probably generally search with American spellings, and probably use them more on the whole.
I do know sometimes people who are aware of the alternate spellings can be militant about it-- an American who sees another American using British spellings will dismiss that person as being pretentious, probably with considerable rancor, and a British person who sees another British person using American spellings would get pretty huffy about it as well. But aren't people generally pretty tolerant about the other dialect using its own spellings?
I'm just wondering, is all. I hadn't given it too much thought; most people I know are fairly tolerant of me because they know what a confused person I am in general. ^.^ But I was soundly mocked for using the phrase "have gotten" in my British Politics class (apparently that's not proper English). I still haven't gotten over... uh... haven't recovered.
I think we have to lean towards our target audience and prospective clients. There is little point being patriotic if we can't get found.
The other aspect is the different words, boot and trunk, fender and bumper etc.
Cheap fags are a totally different ballgame!
That's a good one!
I figured I was pretty well aware of different meanings of words when I went to Britain. I knew about crisps, chips, and fries, I knew about the different spellings, I knew about aluminum and aluminium, I knew how to pronounce vitamins, I knew about boots and trunks, etc.
I even knew the alternate meaning of the word "fag", for cigarette. Not a problem. (Though I still thought it was funny every time I heard it.)
The one that got me:
"Pants."
Does NOT mean the same thing as trousers.
And the British are as unaware of the American meaning as the Americans are unaware of the British meaning.
So, my comments of "nice pants!" got me a number of very confused stares until i caught on.
So, no matter how cosmopolitan you may think you are, you can't always get them all, and you can't always even get all the crucial ones!
Having lived on both sides of the pond, it seems that Americans are generally surprised to see British spelling but the Brits (plus Europeans & others for that matter), are used to seeing US English. To me, it makes sense that if you have to choose one as a default, then you should generally go with US English. Of course if you are selling Tartans you might want to switch that ;-)
Oh yeah, and let's not forget there is Canadian English, Jamaican etc., etc..
Companies put a lot of effort in localizing/localising their sites for the major variants of English. If the copy has to be radically changed that's cool, but if it is just to change a few "esses" for "zees" then does it really matter? (OK, that sounds easy but actually it ends up being a lot of work in a corporation). To me, it has always seemed to be more effort than reward -- at least from a pure "client caring" perspective. Feedback anyone?
Except of course by localizing for the UK you can double your pages, and get key phrases for both versions of text etc..
I hear what you are saying but maybe that is a choice of style? Style, which I think you are talking about, is different than sloppy spelling and grammatical errors.
If you have text that is recognizable as sloppy by your readers and not just because of the style, e.g. mispell "widget", then some people either conciously or unconciously feel a dissonance and therefore less likely to buy. Or that was my thought.
All that being said, throwing in the occasionally spelling mistake is different and I guess even wise if you don't want to give a "robo-copy" feel.
ps Really good point about Brett vs. Admin.
Scott :)
