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Subject:Re: Being Resourceful From:"Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 25 Jun 2001 15:53:25 -0400
Folks,
I didn't take Andrew's bait at first, but I gotta jump in here. Readability isn't high art and it isn't black magic and it isn't personal preference. Some people spend so much of their lives reading badly designed documents that they have become totally desensitized to readability. Too bad for them--and worse for their downstream audiences.
I've got nothing to sell here. You can't buy a template from me. I'm not gonna tie up Andrew's staff's time in a sixteen-hour seminar on readability. I'm just going to say this once (today, anyway): applying generally accepted principles of typography helps readers comprehend and retain the information you are trying so hard to provide to them. This is true on average, over a large user population. It may not affect every individual to the same extent--or at all, apparently.
It is not hard to learn these principles. The hard part is unlearning the old wives' tales and urban myths that folks keep bandying about--on this list, among other places.
There is a huge difference between being a professional typographer (a master of the subtleties of the art) and just learning a few basics that will get you by in your day-to-day tech writing life. Mostly you need to learn a bit of vocabulary and you need to look at a few pictures illustrating good and bad practice. You can get both from any good book on the subject. The rest you can induce from the examples.
Investing a little time to learn this stuff will help you make your documents more effective. Obsessing over it will not. And neither will disparaging the people who know something you don't know (not talking about you, Bruce).
Dick
Bruce Byfield wrote
>Andrew Plato wrote:
>>
>> Funny how writers always assume their personal preferences improve
>> "readability."
>>
>
>Funnier yet how the empire-builders who are always talking about
>"readability" can't discuss it from a design point of view. To be
>honest, Andrew, I've often wonder how somebody like you who is always
>insisting on the need for exacting standards could be hostile to the
>idea of design. However, if your opinion is based on an over-exposure to
>empire-builders, then I think I understand it.
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