Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace

In his June 1996 Alertbox article, Jakob Nielsen states that using inverted pyramids puts the most important information at the beginning instead of at the end, allowing the user to see and find the information immediately. I will use this in all my web writing, and make sure that I let the reader know if I will deviate from that.

Journalists always write like this, while students and professors seem almost allergic to the concept. Journalism reaps constant and great rewards from the inverted pyramid writing style, and on the web, the rewards are greater. The web allows news articles to be linked to others, so that instead of taking up time talking about Design problems, the writer can simply link to a previous article.

This style of writing is not the easiest to learn, but it is the most beneficial to the reader.

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