Visualizing Web Copy

Your web page is not a piece of paper. That means that things you do when you write a printed piece won't always work online -- but it also means that it can be very hard to tell what the copy will look like when it gets into the actual website.

When you arrange to have a website made or a redesign, you may have the web design spa experience: you meet with your team and talk about your project or yourself for an hour while they listen with rapt attention and take notes, and then a few weeks later you get a mockup in your email for feedback. Another couple of weeks, and your site goes live. Hurrah!

But maybe not. Maybe you're doing the copy, or at least having some interaction with the copywriter. That's when it gets difficult. You're looking at words on a screen, or maybe even on paper, and how can you tell whether they're going to work or not?

First, let me give you a peep into my mailbox so you can see the process. As a copywriter, I might meet the project at a variety of points. Right now, I'm working on one project for which the design is complete. I get pages with "lorem ipsum" -- that is, Latinate gibberish -- that show me how much room I have for the various things I need to write. I'm sending the content to the coder and the project manager.



I have another project for which I have an outline. I'm doing the content and sending it to the client for feedback and then to the designer, who will work from the content.



I have a third project for which I have to find a designer and a coder and a host, and I am currently working just with a couple of images from the client and an initial concept from one designer. Once the team is established, I'll be able to work with the designer and the client to determine what's needed in the way of content.



Clearly, the parameters are different for me, depending where in the process I come in. On other jobs, I might be working directly with the client, and never have contact with the others working on the project, or I might be helping a client who manages the site directly and doesn't have a designer or other team members.

But for the client, it can be confusing. Content sent as a text file may be hard to imagine in a website that hasn't yet been designed. Content being written specifically for a completed design may not give a client much flexibility. And some clients, faced with a website still in the initial concept stage, find themselves feeling overwhelmed by all the choices. This is one reason that some web teams like to go ahead and get the work to a fairly advanced state before bringing the client back in.

What's the best choice for your website?

• Trust your team. You picked them, you're paying them, let them do their work. Agree on points during the process at which you'll see the various elements of the project, and give clear feedback at those points. Chances are, your copywriter has done this before and will know the best points for your input -- that is, the points at which you'll be able to tell what's going on.
• Ask for clarification when you need it. If you're having trouble imagining where the different parts of the text will go, and that makes it hard for you to judge how well you like the text, ask for diagrams. Your copywriter may not be the one designing the website, but can still probably give you a sketch showing roughly where things go. A diagram like this may tell you that the text is going to be in the center box, and that may make all the difference for you.
  
• Work out ahead of time how many versions or changes you can have. My feeling is that the client should get what he or she wants. When I had my business website built, I wrote my own content, but I asked for some specific changes in the design. Still, there are reasonable limits. When, a few months later, I decided to have a couple of other changes, I paid for those further changes. If you know that you'll want to work very closely and make word-by-word changes over a long period of time, say so in advance and build that into the price.