Re: document title usability

["Michael West" <mike -dot- west -at- oz -dot- quest -dot- com>]

> "Becca Price" wrote...
>
> > Can anyone cite usability studies about document titles for me?
>
Andrew Plato wrote:

> You're readers won't care about the name if what's inside is accurate and
> good.




While I agree that  "usability studies" are probably not
going to be much use where titles are concerned,
I'd like to know how you can expect anyone to even
*look* at the content if the title doesn't make sense.
Also, if you can't get the title right, what are the chances
that the content is "accurate and good"?


> As for usability guidelines - they're like bellybuttons. Everybody has one
> and they are all superfluous and smell funny. (Have you ever smelled your
> bellybutton - its disgusting.)
>
> For every perceived or real usability violation there is an equal and
> opposite guideline. Readability is the most recent nonsense to consume
> tech writing in the last few years. Its just a way to make personal
> preference seem more "authorative."
>


I'm sure Andrew knows that usability and readability
are two different things. It's probably those noxious
bellybutton fumes that have temporarily clouded his thinking.

--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia





^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and 
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe.  http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.