Adrian Trenholm

More on Qumana

June 22nd, 2005

Tris Hussey , one of the people behind new WYSIWYG blog editor, Qumana, commented on my previous post about the app. Well done Tris for responding so promptly and positively. I feel bad for not being a bit more clear in my post: any comment I make on Qumana, or BlogJet for that matter, will be coloured by my bias against WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). This is to put my original post in context and to explain why I think WYSIWYG editors in general (not Qumana in particular) are problematic. I want to address the concerns of business bloggers, not code geeks.

My opinion on WYSIWYG editors is that their main strength is also their greatest weakness - they make it far too easy for users to format text in all sorts of fancy fonts and colours. That ease of use sounds great in principle, but in practise, it likely compromises design consistency, costing you credibility with your customers. It is also my experience that users prefer fewer features and options, and I have had better feedback from providing simple text boxes with a lightweight Markdown -style syntax, than I have providing fully featured WYSIWYG.

First though let’s tackle Qumana’s WP issues. Yes, there are apparently WordPress integration problems with Qumana right now, but WP users who want WYSIWYG, should simply wait, not dismiss Qumana out of hand. This post on the Qumana blog shows that they have the problem high on their to-do list :

While the reviews have been very positive there are a several requests we’re hearing on a regular basis. First is getting Blogger titles right… Second is support for WordPress categories. Again in the queue and very important to us.

So top marks, Qumana, for listening and responding.

Now let’s get to the meat of it: I don’t like WYSIWYG. I said so in my blog editor group test :

BlogJet is a WYSIWYG editor, which is a boon for probably 99% of the world and a curse for the 1% of us who care - probably too much - about markup. I am in that 1%

So what is this obsession among web developers with “markup,” “clean code,” and the avoidance of “tag soup?” And more importantly, why should the business blogger care? There is all sorts I could write about the semantic web, the separation of content and style, and the importance of clean code, but I promised no geekery here. Setting aside the technical arguments, I think there is a very compelling business argument for avoiding WYSIWYG.

Let’s look at On Blogcrafting and Qumana , a post on the Qumana blog itself. Notice anything different? Read it in place on the Qumana blog home page . Now do you see? The post stands out because the font face, size and colour are completely different from the other posts.

The blogger has written his post in Microsoft Word then cut and pasted it into Qumana. Qumana has done what a WYSIWYG editor is supposed to do: faithfully reproduced all the Word formatting. The Word formatting is inconsistent with the rest of the blog. It looks well, amateur, doesn’t it, to have a post so inconsistent with the rest? I am not picking on Qumana. You can see one of my fellow authors at 173 Drury Lane, a BlogJet user, has done something similar in this post: Justin King speaking at the London Business Forum .

WYSIWYG editors, in their faithful reproduction of MS Word’s output, and their multifarious formatting options, make it almost inevitable that, somewhere along the line, you - or someone blogging with you - will produce inconsistent formatting on your blog. If you can live with that, stop reading now. But I think you should care, especially if you blog to promote your business and you want your readers to trust you.

I base that assertion on the fantastic research into web credibility done by the clever people at Stanford University. Research findings indicate that design, including typography and consistency, can have a big impact on whether users trust you. Inconsistent typography can give a negative impression. At number six in the Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility (emphasis is mine):

We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography , images, consistency issues , and more.

Achieving this kind of consistency is why business spends fortunes on “brand guidelines.” I just Googled “Brand Guidelines” and opened the first document I could find, that of the Junior Chambers International (pdf link). They say on Typefaces (page 12):

For continuity and simplicity, we use one typeface in our communications: Helvetica Neue. It has been chosen for its clarity, legibility and versatility… This is a universally available typeface. This applies to business documents, correspondence, promotional materials, displays, product labels, signs, Web pages and other media.

Small business can sometimes struggle to appear as “credible” as big business, but we can all improve our credibility by applying that kind of design consistency.

In addition, WYSIWYG is not always as easy to use as its proponents like to claim. I used to sell content management systems, as many of us did, by boasting “If you can use MS Word, you can use this system.” Most business users know MS Word, so it makes sense to provide them with a familiar environment, yes? Well, actually, no. Most business users know MS Word, and many find it an extremely frustrating application. They just want to write, not futz with formatting.

I did a small website a while ago for the Sterling chapter of the Business Network International , putting in a small text box (instead of WYSIWYG) coupled with instructions for a simple syntax for formatting and links. Chapter members loved it. One, whose business sold complex content management systems (including WYSIWYG), said it was the simplest way he had every seen to create web content and he was going to ask his techs to look at it to learn about usability.

It is definitely not as simple as text editor good, WYSIWYG bad. How you use a tool, is often more important than the tool you choose. But I advise everyone to weigh the business risks and advantages of each approach - text vs. WYSIWYG - very thoroughly. The way to maintain consistency - and therefore credibility with your users - may well be to limit your blog editing options to a text editor, and if you couple that with Markdown syntax, you may find that approach very easy to use, too.

Entry Filed under: Blogging , Design