Breaking the rules for Web sites

World Wide Web style guides meet a need for writers adapting to new challenges posed by the Web's screen display, interactivity, multimedia options and code limitations. A sampling of Web style guides found differences in scope and emphasis, but common tendencies toward inflexible and shallow rule-making. This suggests that we might improve the next generation of Web style guides (and Web sites) by applying familiar approaches. This might involve paying greater attention to process and to context issues, including audience, purpose, conditions of use, and cultural, political and ethical concerns. Relying on well-grounded professional principles of editorial judgment and targeting style guides for specific applications could also help Web writers to adapt to continuing technology changes.