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Geoff wrote: "The real point is simple and unassailable: the more items you
require someone to remember, the more difficult it will be for them to
remember
those items."
And Jan wrote: "What exactly an item is depends on the context, so in random
sequences (e.g., serial numbers), an "item" may indeed be a single
character. But in most other contexts, an item refers to a word or a
concept. To complicate matters, the definition for an item may be different
for different people."
I agree that adding items makes remembering more difficult, but if you can't
demonstrate what readers experience as "items" in your text (as Jan and
Kathleen point out, it can be a single character, a word, a concept or some
other chunk of information), I think you end up using the "rule of 7" in an
arbitrary way that doesn't add value to your doc. I'm all for understanding
how the brain works and using that knowledge to make better documents, but
I'm puzzled -- 7 what? letters, words, clauses, steps, concepts, topics,
chapters, books...?
