This weekend I led a roundtable discussion on the topic of writing for Web sites at the American Medical Writers Association–Delaware Valley Chapter’s Freelance Workshop, held in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. More than 80 medical writers and editors—most of them freelances—attended the workshop, which included four presentations in the morning and two sessions of roundtable discussions in the afternoon, interspersed with a ample opportunities to network during breakfast, two breaks, and one luncheon.
Participants in the roundtable I led discussed the positives and negatives of well-known association Web sites and of individual freelance writers’’editors’ Web sites. We were surprised to see that the Web sites of some of the most prominent consumer/professional associations are less than user friendly. Part of the problem may be the need to create a Web site for two disparate audiences.
Nonetheless, participants identified certain components that work and fail, formatting that enhances or detracts, and wording and formatting that increases or decreases user participation in a Web site. The feedback from participants led me to re-evaluate my own Web site—a site that’s always in transition to meet the needs of my audience.
Kudos went to the Web site of an AMWA member, Lori Alexander, whose Web site’s style, formatting, navigation, and function was deemed to far surpass those of much larger health care association and those of other writers and editors.
Freelance Matters 