I Wept

Hi Mom, by L. Jeffrey Zeldman

This article just popped up in my news reader.

My mother has Alzheimer's.

The Written Word

I just finished reading a "blog post" on a corporate website. Actually, I didn't finish reading it. There were so many typos, grammatical errors, missing words, etc. that I never made it to the end. I couldn't believe all the mistakes. The author was trying to share some of his knowledge about a subject that I was interested in. But because of all of the mistakes I began to question his credibility. And then I thought of his customers. What would they think if they were to read the article. Was his work just as sloppy as the post?

I tried very delicately to bring up the subject in an email to the author. I didn't want to sound so negative about it but I thought he should know. If I had done the same thing on my business website I would want someone to point it out. Whether we like it or not we are judged by the things we write. Business websites are particulary sensitive. Our customers will be judging us by what they see. There is no place for such blatant mistakes on a business website.

Some of you might argue that "blog posts" have different rules. And I would agree, if it wasn't a business website. This is an author that is trying to build his company by sharing his knowledge. He is attempting to show everyone that he knows his material. Unfortunately, the mistakes get in the way.