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Re: Proof that content is more important than style
Subject:Re: Proof that content is more important than style From:"U-MIRKWOOD\\Gregory Holmes" <holmegm -at- attbi -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sun, 17 Nov 2002 09:15:32 -0500
>You can scream, holler, throw a 1000 simultaneous fits, and post a billion
>messages based on "personal experiences", but the cold, honest fact is: content
>will ALWAYS be more important than style.
>
>Andrew Plato
This reminds me of discussing politics with the simple-minded. If I don't
constantly reiterate that I love clean air, peace, and children, they seem to
assume that I don't. To me, those things are just a given.
Thus, to me, it is a given that content must be:
1. there
2. accurate
I don't see the need to constantly go on about it. I could offer another
personal experience, about the scattered but fairly accurate docs for
"the new system" vs. the organized, structured docs for "the old system" in
a certain organization, but I don't think it would help Andrew any. It would
just be another anecdote to be dismissed.
As for his example of the internet RFCs, they are used by highly technical
people, who oddly enough are expert at searching and text indexing! Not exactly
a representative example of end user documentation.
Another personal anecdote is this. I occasionally hear the refrain "users don't
care about structure or navigation, they just want the information!". Well,
*some* users don't *know* they need structure or navigation, but taking this too
literally gives you one huge web page with a mish mash of links and information.
Every group wants their links or information "at the top" so it can be found
(but wait, being found doesn't matter, just the accuracy)!. "Can you make my
information or link red, so people can see it"? Well, why can't they see it?
Might need a little font or paragraph fondling, or even a little planning.
I recently had to reorganize a site like this, that's my anecdote ...
Greg Holmes
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