Re: Chapter Overviews (Just say No...)

[David Neufeld <davidneufeldemail-twl -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

If the audience would find the content of the chapter
self-evident from the chapter title and sub-headings I
would not include chapter overviews. I'm a proponent
of the "less is more" approach when it comes to this
type of navigational text.

However, I write to an expert level audience that
expects a lot of content on each page and despises
noise. If it ain't content, they don't want to waste
their time sifting through it. Better to spend your
effort clarifying the document structure and headings.

I also don't include chapter overviews because our
documentation goes through a lot of releases, and
therefore it's crucial to minimize duplicated content.
Chapter overviews are a form of duplicated content
which can easily become stale or incorrect without
being noticed on the next release. In other words
chapter overviews might "paint yourself into a
corner". 

If your audience needs or wants a lot of hand-holding,
and your sure this is the only release, then you may
want to include chapter overviews.

D.



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