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Sally Smith is a writer, editor, and the Communications Director for IDEA.
SpicyNodes opens up new methods of organizing information. Because SpicyNodes is deployed in what is akin to 3D space, the linear rules of writing don’t apply. But, if you’re an experienced copywriter, you can whip up SpicyNodes text quickly and easily. This Quick Start Guide will help you efficiently transform exiting site copy into an engaging SpicyNodes implementation.
Spicy Nodes is ideal for many different kinds of web sites, including those for businesses, e-commerce enterprises, educational institutions, museums, non-profit organizations, and local governments. SpicyNodes is designed to enable you to communicate a large amount of information in a way that is completely accessible to readers. It allows web site visitors to chart their own path through your site, making the experience highly personalized, interactive, and engaging.
As a writer, you don’t need technical knowledge to make your clients’ sites innovative and extremely useful. Indeed, writing nodemaps is a value added service you can offer to your clients and developing this skill can pave the way to add to your client base by becoming a SpicyNodes Certified Partner.
A nodemap is an arrangement of nested information, similar to an outline. Second-level nodes spread from the first-level node, third-level nodes expand from each second-level node, and so forth.
Each node consists of a header and supporting text. Optimally, the header length should be from one to six words; the text can range from a short phrase to several sentences. So, instead of thinking in terms of a flowing narrative, begin thinking in terms of blurbs. Node copy is less like a magazine article or traditional web copy and more like catalogue copy or a series of sidebars.
When organizing the information in a nodemap, it’s especially important to view the process from a reader’s perspective rather than an expert’s vantage point. Generally speaking, a parent node should have fewer than five children, although you can create an effective nodemap with as few as two children and as many as 12 children.
Arrange your nodes logically so that readers can easily find what they need. This often leads to an asymmetrical pattern, with detailed information in the first set of nodes, rather than nested further down in the nodemap. This is perfectly acceptable.
For example, if you were converting a web site on the history and current practices of Daylight Saving Time into a nodemap, a hierarchical approach would place the beginning and ending dates of DST in the United States deep into the nodemap, such as DST > World > North America > United States. If you know that the vast majority of your visitors come to your site looking for this information, you can simply place it in the first level of nodes, such as DST > U.S. Dates.
When converting existing web site content into a nodemap, it’s helpful to know which information is most sought after by visitors and then to place that information as a child or grandchild of the parent node.
Quick Tip: Converting existing content into a nodemap may require you to reorganize information. If this is the case, it’s useful to have sections of the site content available in Word documents. In a separate Word document, create an outline of overarching themes and copy and paste existing content into the outline. Once you have the copy plugged into the appropriate themes, it’s easy to break it down into separate nodes.
When creating headers and text for nodes, some writing conventions hold true while others are tossed out. The most notable departure from convention is in the way in which content is organized. The journey readers take through a SpicyNodes implementation is exploratory rather than linear, so rather than organizing information in a hierarchical fashion, you should organize information in terms of facets. SpicyNodes lets readers investigate their interests without having to sift through copy that’s irrelevant. This differs from typical, linear text, where copywriters often must appeal to multiple audiences.
Here’s a simple example to illustrate the difference between the two methods of organizing information:
Joe Smith is the CEO of the XYZ company, and he is married to Jane and he has two daughters, Mary and Kim. He coaches Mary’s soccer team and is an avid amateur photographer. The family owns a vacation home in Vail, Colorado, where they enjoy skiing and snowboarding.
If you were writing a profile of Joe Smith, you’d organize the information about him so that it dovetailed with the focus of the publication. If it were a business story, you’d focus heavily on the role he plays in the XYZ company, his qualifications to run the XYZ company, and the projected growth of the XYZ company. The details about his family and his hobbies would add color to the story. You might sidebar facts about the history of the XYZ company.
If you were writing a story about Joe Smith for a photography publication, you’d use the fact that he’s the CEO of the renowned XYZ company as a hook, but would focus on the cameras he uses, his winter photos of Vail, and so forth. Likewise, if you were writing for a parenting magazine, you’d focus on how Joe is a family man in light of his professional responsibilities.
SpicyNodes broadens the scope of a piece, allowing the reader to look at the facets of Joe Smith’s life that he or she finds relevant or inspiring.
A nodemap of Joe Smith would read very differently than a typical profile because it would be organized using facets of his life instead of using a hierarchy. In a nodemap, you could give equal weight to each aspect of his life. So, if “Joe Smith” is the parent node, there could be several child nodes: XYZ company, marriage to Jane, children, soccer, photography, skiing, residence, vacation home, and so forth.
So, if readers are interested in soccer, they can click through and learn all about his daughter’s city league championship. Or, if they want to know more about vacation homes in Colorado, they’ll click through and take a tour of his Vail property.
Each node needs a header, or title. Keep in mind that headers should draw in your reader, whether through interesting text, prompts, or questions. A node’s text can provide information, give the reader a choice, or both. Depending upon the purpose of your nodemap, the expository text can be a phrase, a sentence, or several sentences. Remember that visitors have the option of expanding a node or scrolling to read the text. The key to a successful nodemap is simplicity and ease of use.
When writing node copy, a common dilemma is what to do when there is too much text for a single node. One solution is to break up the information into additional “child” nodes. Another solution is to utilize graphics (rather than text) to illustrate a point. It’s also easy to link one nodemap to another, which is helpful when you have a large quantity of information about a topic that’s tangential to the nodemap you’re currently writing. Also keep in mind that topics which need deep narrative are best suited for web pages, so you can embed an external link in a node and retain the reader’s ability to access lengthy, linear text.
When it comes to the mechanics of putting your text into the SpicyNodes system, you can take one of two approaches. First, you can create nodes visually, using the SpicyNodes author interface:
Simply click on the “Add node” or “Delete” buttons to create and delete nodes. Click on the title of a node to edit it, and drag the node up or down to rearrange the sequence of your nodes, or to nest one node within another. This method is particularly useful for rearranging the hierarchy of nodes. When you click on the “Edit details” button, you can add text or upload an image to go with the node.
The second method of entering your nodemap text is to import it into the SpicyNodes interface. You can upload text files (.txt file extension). If you prefer to work from a text file, you can intermittently import your file to the interface in order to visualize your nodemap as you develop it. Using the import/export feature, you can alternate working online and offline as you edit the copy and refine the organization of your nodemap.
When you create your nodemap text in a text file, you need to use the SpicyNodes syntax, which is quite similar to using an outline. The syntax is as follows:
+ Level A (central node) :: Descriptive text ++ Level 1 (child to central node) :: Descriptive text +++ Level a (child to Level 1 node) :: Descriptive text +++ Level a (child to Level 1 node) :: Descriptive text ++++ Level i (childe to Level a node) :: Descriptive text ++++ Level i (childe to Level a node) :: Descriptive text
And so forth. Simply add a plus sign for every level of nesting, and a double colon before the descriptive text.
Whether you’ve created the nodes visually using the interface or have imported a Word or text file, you can always export your node text. This is especially helpful when you are proofreading or making significant text changes.
