Re: The Myth of Seven, Plus or Minus Two

Subject: Re: The Myth of Seven, Plus or Minus Two
From: Steven Jong <SteveFJong -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 08:03:52 -0500


Darren Barefoot posted this URL to "a pretty interesting read about the
changing face of Web interface design:"

http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=4058/nam1012431804/

I'm a supporter of the Miller principle across many areas of information design, and I wanted to point out that to me, the cited article was not persuasive. It argued by assertion that Miller's work doesn't apply today, without saying why. (Why not? Why, it just *can't* be!) I was particularly unimpressed with the notion that we have in essence evolved in the last 50 years to be able to absorb more information at a glance.

I believe studies were done in the eighties to find the optimal balance between depth (how many forms deep?) and breadth (how many items per form?) in menu structures; I believe Miller's work was validated then. It would be interesting to see some contemporary studies with Web pages and links on pages. That would be more persuasive than someone saying "is not!" (and me saying "is so!" 8^)


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