(I now join Ken in being a grumpy curmudgeon about the format of many
posts.)
Form enhances content. Form enhances functions.
Readability -- please think about the time it takes people to read posts.
Make it easy for people to read.
Ken keeps pleading for people to trim their posts -- to delete all the
prior material that has presumably already been read, but that now occupies
wasted space -- making reading of several conjoined posts difficult.
I make a similar plea for white space. Space between paragraphs.
When you do not separate paragraphs with an empty line, it is really
difficult to read. In most cases i give up. I don't care how valuable your
post might be, my time is also valuable, and short of copying the post into
Word and adding extra line spacing, I can't read it.
Example. I pick upon Tilu's "Re: Beyond academia (long post)". Tilu got
the snippping part right, providing short snippets that were presumed to be
relevant. (I don;t know because i gave up reading the article). This
article is simply the one that broke my vow of restraint from critiquing.
It is just one of many posts. It even looks like it might have been
interesting, if only i could have read it.
So,
1. Snip
2. Use short paragraphs (essential for material being read from a
computer screen.
3. Put an extra line between paragraphs -- the white space dramatically
enhances readability.
There are many people on this list whose profession is typography and page
design. I am really surprised that none of them thought to comment on the
form of our presentations. Form enhances content.
Thank you
Don Norman
Grouchy old man.
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