Re: What if they can't spell?

[dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com]

Bevan McCabe wrote:
> 
> When using an index to look up information, most literate people will know
> at least the first two letters of a word, and will see the correctly spelt
> entry nearby in the list, and go to that.

We've always held that this is one of the greatest strengths of a traditional index.

> 
> But with natural-language questions and technology for online help like the
> Microsoft Office Assistant or Wextech Answer Works, I don't know whether
> these recognise misspelt words, and when using these types of tools, if you
> enter a key word that it doesn't recognise, it won't know to tell you that
> you misspelt the word. As far as it is concerned, you entered a word it
> didn't recognise, regardless of whether it has only one letter wrong.

The "strike-through" presentation and "sounds-like" feature mentioned in a couple of replies are interesting attempts at solving the problem you describe, but both have their own shortcomings.

We believe a traditional index, whether it replaces a search engine or simply offers an alternative, always adds value to the web site or help system in question.

--David

=============================
 David M. Brown - Brown Inc.
    dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com
=============================

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