The Mysteries of Easter Island

From a LexisNexis search, I found an article from Copley News Services. The article was about the mysteries and history of Easter Island, but that’s secondary to the assignment’s primary goal of reworking a loquacious, for-print travel article into a more useful Web document.

Our assignment called for halving the content twice, giving us the opportunity to add links, lists, and chunk the content, hopefully adapting the original article into a version that more effectively utilizes the online medium.

My intent was to introduce the content’s “bottom line up front,” with options available from the first “fold” that enable readers of various interest levels to jump in as deep or as shallow as their information needs dictate. To accomplish this, I made three primary style changes:

Linking: I used external hyperlinks to provide readers the option of referring to additional sources for greater detail. Some of the links that the original (print) article listed were broken. These were replaced or omitted. I added a faux mail-to link in the adaptation’s header; online work should provide a means to contact the author whenever appropriate.

Lists: Lists below each of the headings create an easily scannable document. An introductory list/table of content is available in the left sidebar, with each reference anchor-linked to the relative content heading.

Layout: Format and/or design are important in creating a widely accessible Site in the same way that writing should be tailored to reach different levels of reader interest or expertise. I think people are increasingly accustomed to a “bloggish” layout in Web page design. No comments, blogroll, or reverse chronology in this remixed travel article, but I positioned features and content where I think people are most accustomed to finding them.

View the original article and my adaptation.