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> From: eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com
> Very simple answer: Because CONTENT IS KING.
>
> Once you've standardised the content and it's structure and
> organisation,
> you can present it virtually any way you like.
>
> Plus, each agency/company may have different style guides.
> So, the common
> and important thing is that the content be reusable between different
> publications and electronic publications.
>
> When you're talking about an aircraft with 10s of thousands
> of pages of
> information, probably 99% of the problem is ensuring the
> information you
> need is included and it's organised in a recognised way. Once
> you've found
> it, it isn't terribly important what it looks like.
Eric,
I agree that standardizing and organizing the content is a major part of
any mil/heavy industries documentation project, and that different style
guides may be used to output the content in different ways. However, in
this particular case the formatting outlined in Chapter 6 of AECMA Spec
1000D comes across as being mandatory, as in "this _is_ the way
publications complying to AECMA Spec 1000D _shall_ look like". And even
if the design template was not mandatory, experience suggests that if
someone uses a spec and don't have any own ideas about formatting, the
design template in the spec will be used.
I can not agree that "it isn't terribly important what it looks like". I
can agree that "it isn't terribly important what it looks like if the
typography does not do anything for the content". But the aim for good
typography and carefully considered arrangement of paragraphs, tables,
figures etc has always been to make content more accessible.
Since the content is, in many of these cases, extremely important, I can
not see any reason why it should not be as accessible for the reader as
possible.
