Mail Starting 4/27/98
19 messages, ending 5/9/98
Last modified: 5/13/98
This section is in chronological order, since it is being released as one piece.

From: Dave Cornell
Date: 4/27/98
Subject: Well done

Very useful and insightful!  I will recommend it to my fellow IS consultants.

Thanks,
Dave Cornell

From: Gregory Adams-Tait
Date: 4/27/98
Subject: Reactions to your site

I am always interested in views about writing on the web. I always read
Neilson's comments. Here are some responses to your site....

The example site map....
Sorry, didn't work for me. I found the example very difficult to
navigate.... especially getting out of it.

I couldn't figure out which icon was highlighted and it didn't say "You are
here." The headings for each section only had meaning to a person who knew
the document. (This is always the big problem, isn't it?)

Also shame that the example didn't follow the sensible list of do's that
you have made on your site.
(http://www.gooddocuments.com/Techniques/techniqueshome.htm )


@@@

Although I have used a similar things on some of my webpages..... I find
the lack of navigation at the end of each page somewhat annoying. I look
for a button to go to the next topic or to go somewhere, but it seems I
need to use the browser 'back' button to go back to the index.... or did I
miss the point?

@@@

Is it my bad colour vision or do your links NOT change colour after having
been downloaded?

From: Eldad Ganin
Date: 4/27/98
Subject: importance of ALT text in images

Dan & co.,

Thanks for doing this. It is a valuable contribution.

I tend to be a very impatient reader. I always run with "show images" off
to save download time. Pages that display some ALT text next to every image
make it much easier for me to deal with. Many web pages show logos and
fancy backgrounds that I don't want to bother with.

[I know your project is aimed at intranet web pages, but this strategy also
helps when viewing commercial web pages -- it seriously cuts down on the
volume of ads]

The ALT text entries allow me to identify any images that I may really want
to see. I can select which images I really want to see.

Pages that don't provide ALT text make it hard for people like me.

A perfect example is on your samples page:
http://www.gooddocuments.com/samples/ts_homepage.htm

The left frame on this page is meaningless until the image is displayed.

regards,

- Eldad

These are slowly being fixed throughout the site. You are right!
-DanB

From: Bruce Havumaki
Date: 4/27/98
Subject: Another Link

Here's another interesting site I came across today and bookmarked:

http://www.contentious.com/

Take a look.  It is also about writing for the Web.  Is this a trend?

From: Bob Allisat
Date: 4/28/98
Subject: Cudos and Critique

Hello -

The print is too small on the "Techniques" page
perhaps because the right side frame is blank.
Perhaps eliminating this frame, enlarging the
text font and creating margins with <blockquote>
or <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="6"><TD> would
help create a clearer, easier to read document.
Many visually impaired people (the elderly or
those with poor eyesight) have commented to me
on how damned difficult it is to read stuff.

I realy enjoyed your site and gained some valuable
tips. I always have to remind myself to KISS and
to practice the many principles of CLAD (Clear
Language and Design). Thanks for taking the effort
and I'll be adding gooddocuments.com to my short
list of recomended WWW help sites.

Bob Allisat

I used a design that has a right side frame to look good on 800x600 displays. I choose the font size independently. I'll look into your comment next time I rev the look of that page.
-DanB

From: Steve G. Dobson
Date: 4/28/98
Subject: Comments on your pages

I have just finished reading your pages on "Web Page Writing for Business",
and I was very impressed with the clarity and ideas you present.  I has made
me rethink the writing I am doing currently.  A lot you have said is just good
common sense, but well worth saying again.  Keep up the good work.

I did notice that I there was almost nothing on the different types of
browsers available.  Unless you are writing only for an intranet which has
forced one browsers on its users care has to been taken to provide the
information to all.

Having hear of your pages from TBTF I looked at your pages using lynx (a unix
text only browsers).  After all I though for a Web Site about writing it ought
to be well presented for a text only browser.  This is not the case.  Navigation
was all but impossible.

I have rejected using FRAMES for two reasons: not all browsers support them,
and a frame page should stand by themselves in case an external site links to
it (not the master).  Fixing this second point would go a long way to making
your pages more readable to text only browsers.

On my personal web site (currently under development) I use TABLES to layout
the page.  I have found it provides a way of laying out the information I want
for graphical type browsers, and provides a reasonable layout to my
text only browser as well.  If I remember right I got the idea form
Sun's guild lines.

Thanks for the comments. This web site is structured like the documents it is about. It assumes relatitively new, full-featured browsers (Netscape 3, IE 3, for example). Frames are used because they fit the design techniques of mixing scrolling and non-scrolling areas. However, I strongly agree with you that the pages should be separately bookmarkable, and they are. See the "Non-scrolling is an acceptable use of Frames" discussion in the Place Elements Carefully technique.
-DanB

From: Plessey Mathews
Date: 4/28/98
Subject: Text based browsing ??

Hi,

Your site and approach to creating readable documents
come as a breath of fresh air.

Although I have'nt gone through every section throughly
I note that you have assumed that every one will automatically
have graphics loading browsers.  

This came to me when I started your tour of a sample document.
My link to the net is a primitive 9600bps one.  So I keep
graphics loading off by default.  I read the first page
but couldnt go to the next because I did'nt see the arrow icon
at the bottom.

I feel that a good document design should be tolerant to pure
text HTML viewing.

Keep up the good work

As I responded to Eldad, above, I'm adding ALT tags to images. While Trellix outputs the ALT tag, I had neglected to fill out the image description property. Thanks for pointing this out. This is the type of thing that helps "primitive" setups, but won't be a problem in the future for having done it. (Remember the old days: "Memory is so expensive at 13 cents a bit for RAM, and we can save a lot of memory if we get rid of all those redundant '19's in dates..." -- we don't want to make mistakes like that.)
-DanB

From: Michael Cronin
Date: 4/28/98
Subject: an elegant site for a web-worthy topic

You have successfully summarized many of the issues I address with
business content experts each day in my role as a web author/developer.
Thank you!

<insert obligatory nit here> The background texture on the left of the
screen makes reading the overlaid text difficult. If you really want to
keep the textured look then how about "boxing" the text with a solid
color like on your top level page?

Michael Cronin

I'll look into changing it at some point. It fit the design of the home page, because it's just a little list, but on other pages there is much more material. Maybe some font changes will help.
-DanB

From: Robert Neff
Date: 4/28/98
Subject: persons with disabiltities

appreciate the web site, references, and useabiltiy research - thanks!

since the federal govt is requiring that their web sites be ADA compliant
and was wondering what your position is with ADA is? have you conducted any
research? is this something you will address here?

thanks...rob

We have not done any research in that area, but it is a hot topic. I am having enough problems figuring out what might be good for a large number of people, and have not had time to tune the solutions in light of various disabilities. It might be interesting for someone with an interest in (and knowledge of) that area to contribute to the discussion.

At least most of what is on the site relates to text, or very structured maps (with text cues). Once we can agree upon what works generally, we can come up with guidelines for making them more accessible. For example, common wordings for background textures to explain what "feel" you are trying to get across, or special tagging of all links to get them into automatic lists that are easier to choose from for people with difficulty moving a mouse, etc.

The more I think of it, this will give us some material at a later date that will fit nicely in explaining what we really meant by some techniques, because the object of some of the helping software is to give access to the important part of material (e.g., reading text, but not dwelling on font in most cases).

-DanB

From: Jody Cline
Date: 4/28/98
Subject: PDF Version

I prefer to read something as detailed as these techniques offline.  I know
this may run counter to your online emphasis, but I'd really like a Adobe
pdf version...
Jody Cline

Of course, the point of the site is to cover material about making things work on screen, and to do it in a way that works on screen...

In any case, making a linear document out of a non-linear document takes a bit of work. Most browsers won't even print frames. Also, the examples, which are non-linear documents, are an important part of the site and are hard to convert to paper in a way that gives the feeling of using them.

BUT, there are times when you want to read on paper -- if there is enough demand, I can make paper printouts of much of the site, since it is originally written in Trellix, and Trellix can print (with frames) documents. I could also make the original Trellix documents available, and then you could read or print whatever you want. Is that helpful? (PDF just doesn't work with mixtures of scrolling and non-scrolling, etc.)

Also, we have a videotape of Chris Daly (mentioned in the Trellix 1.0 development project page) giving a mock "classroom lecture" about a bit of this, especially the "newspaper" philosophy. Any interest in that?

-DanB

From: Craig Marley
Date: 4/29/98
Subject: Great Site!

Your website www.gooddocuments.com is like a breath of fresh air amongst all
the technological smog! If you listen to the technocrats, throwing the
latest wizbang technology on a website is the way to go. Nuts!

The technocrats keep telling us that one-click publishing to the Web is the
goal!

Just listen to the what a VP at Microsoft has to say...
http://www.microsoft.com/office/office/devaan/2waycomm.asp

Ghastly! Just wait until everyone who can type in the office click-publishes
their document to the corporate intranet. I just can't wait!

I have been saying for the past couple of years exactly what you are
advocating on your website. (Some of it is on my site at
http://www.golden.net/~mtech under Web Design & Information Architecture.)
If you don't mind, when I get the chance to revise it, I will reference your
site.

Especially useful is your practical advice on how to do content--summaries,
bullet lists, shorter text, etc. This is also the best approach for also
designing WinHelp files.

I want to run an idea by you. In reality my goal is one-click publishing
too! But what this means to me is a single source file which is easily
ported AND suitable for print, or online, or WinHelp, or the Web. But rather
than the Microsoft way, I believe the reverse should work. Design for the
Web using the techniques you mention, and produce a printed document from
this source. The printed doc would not have the navigational components for
the Web, BUT would be in the same content format of minimalism: i.e..
summary, bullet lists, etc. I believe it would be more readable and useful
for anyone in our harried society. In fact if saved as a PDF online
document, there could be embedded hyperlinks also!

What I would like to know is if any usability studies have been done on this
type of paper document? A normal paper document could serve as the base
reference just as was done in the study for web usability.

Thanks for your great site.

-- Craig

I don't know if you are familiar with our Trellix 1.0 product. It lets you treat an entire set of linked pages as one document, complete with map, and you can save it in native mode (a single file), save to HTML (lots of files -- this is what I used to write the Good Documents site sections), or print. In printing, the pages are printed run-on, one after the other, in an order you specify, with links annotated with footnote numbers. The footnotes tell you the title of the destination and which page to turn to in that printout. We've looked further into formating for print, but haven't implemented anymore yet. I don't know of much research, but I do know from personal experience (and others) that turning a linked document into a linear one by cut and pasting is much easier than the other way.

-DanB

From: Jody Cline
Date: 4/29/98
Subject: Map

I really like the sample map
http://www.gooddocuments.com/techniques/mapdemo.htm.  I'm just a map
person at heart, and like to see visually how the site is laid out.  I would
like to see a map of the Good Documents site itself !  I'd like a link to
the good documents site map on the home page.  I would also like a site
search button on the left menu of each page.  I will remember that I've seen
a page with information on, say,  "pyramid" style and want to be able to
find the pages where this word is mentioned.
I'm thinking more about my request to be able to print out some of the site
and will come back with a more specific suggestion about what parts I'd like
to see "in print" .
On the Trellix site, I found it very interesting that " Mr. Bricklin
conceived the electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc"... wow!  I remember using
that way back at IBM when my "portable pc" was the size of a large sewing
machine and I had to get help to carry it from the car to the house!   I
liked the photo of the Trellix staff and especially that there is a child in
the photo.
Cool site.
Jody Cline

We're looking into providing a mapped version of the site, as well as a search engine. It is, though, a while in the future.
-DanB

From: Steven Tolkin
Date: 4/29/98
Subject: More good practices for web pages: No punctuation around URLs; get whole document; remember printing

1. When displaying URLs do not add extraneous punctuation before or
afterwards.  It is likely that user's will want to select the string and
then paste it into their browser.  If to make a normal sentence it
should be followed by punctutaion consider adding an extra space.
Good example: See http://www.gooddocuments.com for more suggestions.
Do not do this: See <http://www.gooddocuments.com> for more suggestions.

2. If at all possible provide the user with a way to get the whole
document in one access.
Among the generally accepted formats are one large ghtml file (foo.html
or foo.htm), plain text (e.g. foo.txt), Postscript (foo.ps), Adobe
Acrobat (foo.pdf), and increasingly Microsoft Word and Powerpoint
(foo.doc and foo.ppt).  The advantage to the iuser (reader) of
downloading one file is that it minimizes the number of clicks or
keystrokes needed to read the whole document.  (Some people may disagree
with this recommendation but I strongly advocate it.   Among the sites
that would benefit is http://www.gooddocuments.com .)

3.  Think of how the output will look when printed.  For example
consider whether one logical (html) page can fit onto one physical page,
and try to avoid "widows", i.e. one or two lines that spill over to the
next page.

Hopefully helpfully yours,
Steven Tolkin [Comments are by me, not my employer]

From: Stephen D. Franklin
Date: 4/29/98
Subject: Comments on http://www.gooddocuments.com/

It's hard to say the following without it sounding like a flame
and I have much, much, much too much respect for the folks behind
this site to want to run that risk.  Thus, with all respect
I submit the following observations about the site that
discourage me from considering it as a model:
 1) The source HTML doesn't include a DOCTYPE.
    Against what DTD should one validate the source?
    Running http://www.gooddocuments.com/homepage/homepage_m.htm
    against 3.2 and 4.0 frameset yielded errors and then
    I stopped guessing.
 2) The choice of font sizes (too small in places) and face
    (return to Mr. Sholes' finest) is less than optimal.
 3) While the use of frames is something about which reasonable
    people hold differning opinions, my own about this use
    of frames is that a fair amount of screen space is invested
    with relatively little to show in the way of navigational
    ease or even improved skimming.  With considerably less
    expenditure of screen space, a horizonally oriented
    frame can contain as much information as the largely
    empty vertical frame.  Indeed, such vertical frames could
    well be considered as new technology simply following old,
    print-based, sidebar layout.

Final note:
 The content contains much of value.  My real regret is that
 certain aspects of the presentation detracts, rather than
 enhances, from that value.  (How ironic.)
 I particularly appreciate the link to Nielsen's useit.com
 and the questions that you are raising.

Thank you,

-- sdf

From: Joe O'Laughlin
Date: 4/30/98
Subject: samples

I'm writing a "document" using Trellix, so I'm very interested in
your comments on how you do it. Still, the disorientation from
hopping around among many dissimilar screens made me sleepy -
perhaps a form of rejection. I'll look again to see if repeated
exposure engenders a familiarity with that foreign culture I
thought I saw.

I did compare the linear status report to the hypertext version.
First I waffled around in the hypertext, then skimmed the linear
to give me an idea of the relative importance of topics and the
level of subordination of supporting material.

Then I returned to the hypertext and it made a lot more sense.
Particularly useful was the "Parts of the Document" section that
shows what has already been read - so one gets a sense of how much
more there is to do to completely survey the hidden chunks.

I think hypertext forces interaction on the reader (if the reader
is somehow COMPELLED to do it) that will result in the reader being
more invested in the content, and "owning" more of it.

Computer scrolling the linear document the way I would speedread
the same text on paper, my eyes roll up in my head and I filter out
only what I need to know - I think.  STRUCTURE and SUBORDINATION in
this case. So, more of the CONTENT probably gets transfered in
hypering around the hypertext.

I have read a lot of the philosophy of hypertext output by Neil
Larsen of Max Think as well as more cited pundits, so perhaps I'm
tainted.

Anyway I'll check back to compare your evolution with my own.

Joseph O'Laughlin
        
From: Petr
Date: 4/30/98
Subject: Carping a bit

Very sensible, workable ideas. But why the large font on the "overview
page" and the wide borders? Why change between border frames one side
and both sides?

Petr

From: Rubye Braye
Date: 5/3/98
Subject: GREAT

This is wonderful site. Thanks for a great job.

I just started to work as a senior management analyst.  I'll no doubt be
able to use this format to assist the project manager in preparing more
effective status reports and documenting the plans.

Rubye Braye

From: Keith Lambert
Date: 5/3/98
Subject: Good Documents

Visited your site and found the contents interseting.
Tell me, what do I need to produce something like the pages that I saw.

Thanks,
Keith

The Good Documents site was created entirely using Trellix Corporation's Trellix 1.0 program with the new, HTML add-on pack (http://www.trellix.com). Two examples, the map demo and the map page of the presentation sample, were created by taking the HTML created by Trellix and editing it slightly in notepad. I guess I'll make it a little more explicit in a few places (so the mail won't look like an ad for Trellix... :) ).

-DanB
From: Wendy Schumacher
Date: 5/9/98
Subject: Great Website!

I am redesigning my organization's website for a graduate school class
and a classmate let me know about your website which is full of great
information.  I just have one comment to improve navigation.  

Please put your box of subject headings from the main page on the left
side of every page.  It will prevent having to return to the main page
every time we want to look at something else.

Thanks, Wendy Schumacher

This comment keeps coming up, and is in the usability testing report. I'll look into it for the future.
-DanB