Category vs. alphabetical listing in contents tab in online help?

Subject: Category vs. alphabetical listing in contents tab in online help?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 08:52:17 -0500


Matthew Nankin wonders about <<...the relative merits of an online contents
tab organized by subject vs. that same contents organized alphabetically.>>

Neither is inherently superior, since each approach has merit and drawbacks.
The approach with the greatest merit depends strongly on the nature of the
information and how readers will search for information. In a reference-type
work, they may very well start by coming up with the correct word for the
material they want to look up, then scan alphabetically through a list to
find that word. In a highly procedural work, they may already basically know
the overall sequence of steps and may want to simply skim down the contents
until they find the step they're seeking; in that case, the TOC entries
should follow the sequence of steps.

Then there's that horrible "in between" category when users may want neither
approach or a combination of both approaches. In the former case, you may
need a TOC that is actually an illustration of a physical product or a
software screenshot with callouts that represent the topics covered in the
help file. In the latter case, you may need to combine the alphabetical and
subject approaches: an alphabetical list of main entries with a series of
chronological (sequential) steps for the subentries, or vice versa. But
again, you have to think carefully about what users will be looking for when
they open the TOC. If you have no strong reason to think one is superior,
consider going with subject-based order, since those who think first of
alphabetical order are most likely to consult the index.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada

"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding
what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often
idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make
sense."--Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer

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