How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable?

Subject: How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: techwr-l List <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Van Laan, Krista" <KVanlaan -at- verisign -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:19:05 -0400

Krista Van Laan wondered: <<Are there any guidelines anywhere for
what is a reasonable number of headers and indents?>>

No definitive guidelines, but the "magic number 7" may be appropriate
here. The basic notion is that working (short-term) memory tends to
have a sweet spot at around 7 chunks of information for any typical
group of people. This means that most of us can keep up to 7 items in
our head simultaneously when we must compare those chunks or work
with them simultaneously. If you attempt to figure out your position
within a hierarchy, it seems reasonable that you'd be trying to keep
all those headings and subheadings and their relationships together
in one place so you can compare them simultaneously and figure out
where you are. The more distractions and the more stressed people
are, the fewer levels they'll be able to grasp.

Is this correct in practice? I wish I could state this with
certainty, but I can't. It seems reasonable, and it fits my own
experience with trying to figure out complex heading hierarchies. It
also fits with a bunch of research articles I've read over the years
on similar topics (e.g., navigation through Web hierarchies). But it
simply hasn't been rigorously tested (to my knowledge) specifically
for heading levels.

Nonetheless, it's clear to me that fewer levels is better than more
levels, and I've always worked hard to keep my hierarchies to 3
levels, with a maximum of around 4 levels if pressed. This may not
always be possible if you're working with a really complex body of
information, but there are all kinds of tricks you can use to do
this. If you provide a concrete example of your own heading
hierarchy, we can probably play with it and help you find something
simpler.

<<This layout will show up in online help and PDF documents.>>

That introduces a further complication: in print, it's easier to flip
pages without losing your place if you want to review where you are
in a hierarchy. I have seen some evidence that more complex
hierarchies can be comprehended on paper than is possible on the
screen. But I'd have to do some serious digging to find the articles
that demonstrate this.


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www.geoff-hart.com
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References:
How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable?: From: Van Laan, Krista

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